


Please Don't Stop

by Adolphus Longestaffe (adolphus_longestaffe)



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, Bisexuality, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Demisexuality, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Love at First Sight, M/M, MAJOR DEATH STRANDING SPOILERS, Post-Canon, Referenced suicide, higgs needs hugs, mild horror themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:21:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 92,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21682522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adolphus_longestaffe/pseuds/Adolphus%20Longestaffe
Summary: The extinction failed, Higgs finds himself stranded back in the world of the living with no purpose--nothing to give his continued existence any meaning. Naturally, he orders a pizza.Post-game, canon-compliant (as far as the story the game gives us).Attention lazy pervs: the porn is in Chapter 20. You're welcome. ;)
Relationships: BB-28 | Louise & Sam Porter Bridges, Fragile & Higgs Monaghan, Lockne & Mama (Death Stranding), Sam Porter Bridges & Fragile, Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan
Comments: 321
Kudos: 759





	1. Please Don't Stop (Chapter 1)

It was half a grim joke to himself when he typed in the order. Gallows humor from a man who can’t die and how’s that for irony. Only the joke was on him this time. Rejected by death herself. Spit back out and left stranded in this wasteland, a ruined mockery of what he had been. What he’d thought he had been, anyway. Turns out he was just a fool.

He had awakened blind and disoriented, with the grit of sand between his teeth and jagged rocks digging into his body, cold water lapping his feet, seeping in through his boots. He laid there in a senseless stupor for he doesn’t know how long. Days. Weeks. Time is relative. At long last, with a herculean effort of will, he heaved up his heavy, cold-numbed body and rolled over onto his back.

It was then that he saw it. The chiral rainbow, arcing across the sky above him like a mocking smile. Not death. Not the Beach. Blackness swallowed his vision again. His body racked with rage and agony. He wanted to scream, curse, cry out so loudly she’d be forced to hear him, even across the impassable divide. But all his righteous fury was utterly impotent. His parched throat couldn’t even make a sound.

As his eyes and ears grew accustomed to the material world, he became aware of his surroundings. The debris-strewn bank of an ugly, black river, with huge, glittering dragonflies, darting about overhead like they had some urgent business in hand. Stupid goddamned bugs, what could they have to do that’s so all-fired important? He watched them perforce, until the whirring and buzzing of their ceaseless industry grew to an insupportable din, and irritated him to action.

With a muttered curse on all of insect-kind, he managed to rouse his leaden limbs to the task of dragging himself to his feet. Encouraged by this success, he set about clambering up the steep embankment, almost on all fours, till he reached the crest, where he stood panting for a long moment, as if steeling his will for another effort.

Then he began to walk. He had no idea where he was going, only away from the river and the interminable dragonflies. But gradually, as the mist over his eyes continued to clear, he was able to get a general idea where he was. Some stretch of desert in the Central Region. He knew it well. Pallid sand mottled with blasted, black rocks and split by treacherous crevasses. On the ragged lip of one of these, he came upon the first signs of civilization. Rusted-out cargo containers, abandoned by some porter and left to disintegrate in the timefall. A maudlin comparison to himself arose in his mind and he moved on.

For what felt like a life-age of the earth, he stumbled doggedly along, picking his way over time-gnawed terrain, until the white peaks of the mountain loomed into view, towering on the horizon behind their heavy, grey veil. Now he had his bearings. He turned sharply northeast and pushed on, half dead and more than half out of his mind, until almost by surprise, he found himself in his own home, staring at walls plastered haphazardly with papers and maps. Spiderwebs of crimson threads and photographs of…

In his delirious madness, he had a partly formed idea of tearing them all down and burning them, but his body was strained well past its breaking point. He turned and fell like a rock onto his bare cot, prepared to abandon himself to the black depths of sleep. But the rest he needed so badly seemed determined to evade him. He woke by fits and starts, wandering in and out of consciousness, sometimes panting and drenched in a cold sweat, gripped by terror that he’d been buried alive, sometimes taunted by echoes of voices, sometimes tormented by the tomblike silence.

In one of the fits, he saw Fragile, smiling and holding out her hand to him. As soon as he reached for it, her body began to warp and shrink, crumpling up like dry paper and withering away before his eyes, till only her disembodied face remained, still smiling serenely.

In another, he felt his uncle’s hands taking hold of him and dragging him roughly up from his cot. He made a weak attempt to twist free and escape the rain of blows that was certain to follow, but he didn’t even have the strength to open his eyes, let alone fight back. No blows came. A strong hand held him fast by the back of his neck, like a scruffed dog. Calloused fingers forced his mouth open and some tepid, sickly-sweet liquid was poured down his throat, making him choke and sputter. Then the hand released him and the blackness took him again.

When he emerged to a fragmented wakefulness the next time, the memory of this last fit was still heavy on him. He blinked blearily about, but he was alone, and nothing appeared more amiss than usual. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had really been there. He rose on shaky legs and crossed the room to his computer, to call up the security logs. Nothing. It had been one of the fevered hallucinations. Then his strength failed and he fell shivering and chattering into his cot.

Despite its having been a fever dream, the strong impression of that sweet liquid seemed to have had some salutary effect. When he came to, he found his mind clearer and his body less numb. The practical upshot of this turn in his condition primarily being that he was now intensely alive to pain. There was no inch of his battered body that was not aching and sore. He had just begun to muse on the unpleasantness of this sensation, when it was swiftly overwhelmed by a far more immediate and pressing sort of pain.

A deep, gnawing, biting hollowness, right smack in the middle of him. Hunger. Hunger like he had never experienced in his life, not even as a child, when he had been really starving. He rolled onto the floor and crawled to an ammunition container, from which he drew a cylindrical glass canister. Reluctantly, he unscrewed the metal lid, and with a grimace and a shudder, forced himself to swallow several of the canister’s fat, pink little occupants. The hunger pangs eased immediately, and he pulled a drab-green blanket out of the same container and fell into another fevered, uneasy sleep.

He woke again some hours later, skull splitting and hunger clawing at his insides with redoubled savagery. It was all he could do to crawl over and retrieve the canister, containing his few remaining cryptobiotes. Two managed to slip out and waft away toward the ceiling as he devoured the others. He didn’t have the strength to try and get them down, so he laid on the floor glaring up at them as they floated in slow circles, writhing and waggling their idiotic leg nubs.

“Y’goddamn weevils,” he croaked, between labored breaths. “You can’t…stay up there…forever.”

They squeaked blithely and looked immensely stupid.

After a few minutes, the throbbing in his head subsided and he was able to pull himself up to sit in his chair. He was half minded to capture the little shits, but he knew even those disgusting, floating larva wouldn’t help for long. He needed something else. Something to fill the void and warm the cold that was sinking deeper and deeper into the center of his being.

His heart lurched into his throat when the proximity sensors blared a sudden alert. He shook from head to toe, fumbling in his haste to call up the visual feed on his screen. His lip curled in a sneer. Two Bridges porters in white uniforms, with yellow odradek fins spinning like pinwheels over their shoulders. They were carrying cargo, but the tags were addressed to the distro center. Then what the fuck were they doing trespassing?

“…not abandoned, it was linked to the UCA a couple months ago,” one of them was saying, as the two ducked into the shelter entrance.

“Sam Bridges must’ve linked it, then,” the other remarked, taking a swig from his canteen. “He signed all the preppers out here.”

“Looks like he did, yeah. Let’s see. Registered occupants….uh…just one. Mr. Peter Englert. Oh. Missing, presumed deceased or traveling. I guess he won’t mind us waiting out the weather for a little while, then.”

“It’s too bad about Sam. Guy was a hero.”

“Still haven’t found him, huh?”

The other responded with a doleful shake of his head. “They’ve had the whole UCA searching for him for weeks and…nothing.”

“They say he’s dead.”

“Nah, not Sam. I don’t believe it. Hey, look. Timefall let up. We better get moving if we want to make it to the distro center before it starts coming down again.”

With that, they hurried away, heralded by the proximity sensor alert, informing them that weapon restrictions had been lifted. Inside the shelter, the ostensible Mr. Peter Englert sat stunned and listless, staring through his screen into the middle distance, till a sudden wrench in his gut set him panting and shaking afresh.

_Still haven’t found him._

_They say he’s dead._

Shows what they know. That fucking motherfucker isn’t dead. He can’t be dead. Sam can’t die. He can’t. He wouldn’t.

But…he might decide to disable his cufflinks and fuck off to god knows where without telling anyone. Wouldn’t that be a good joke. And it’d be just like Sam. And what if those Bridges morons had been moving heaven and earth to find him and he just showed up one day and took a delivery. And wouldn’t an order from the dearly departed Mr. Englert be just the thing to smoke him out.

So he ordered a pizza and laughed to himself. A dead, dry laugh that rang hollow even in his own ears. But just the thought of facing Sam again set his teeth on edge and got a flicker of the old fire burning in his frozen veins. Sam was worth fighting. The only man worthy to exchange blows and draw blood with the herald of the apocalypse. He clung to the idea with all his will. Buoyed himself up and sustained himself with it, and began to strategize.

He knew he was in no condition for a fight, but he would be if he could get his hands on a BT. A few of ‘em, if possible. That presented the first problem. Shrieking bastards knew a predator as well as any wild animal, and he doubted he could compel them to come and be devoured in his current state. The closest BT area was the former shopping mall and current crater outside the much larger crater that had been Middle Knot.

Even the smaller crater would be an impossible trek for a man who could barely drag himself out of bed to take a piss, so he had two options. Expend his last lingering bit of energy trying to summon a BT, or wait around for some more hapless porters to wander into his web and shoot them. Couple of voidouts to recharge the ol’ battery and he’d be good as new.

He was inclined toward this second option, but it only presented more problems. All the porters wore cufflinks now, so the deaths would certainly be noticed well before the voidouts. Bridges would send someone, then, and it wouldn’t be Sam. It’d be security men, with shaky gun-hands and soft, city-raised bodies, reeking of fear so strong the stench’d made him sick.

The order, though…that might be enough on its own to bring Bridges people down on his little shelter like a swarm of out-of-shape ants. But no, it wouldn’t. They’d have been down here to toss the place long time since if they’d known who Mr. Peter Englert really was. Sam was the only one who knew and it looked like the asshole had kept his secrets. Or he hadn’t got a chance to tell anyone.

No. Not that. Sam couldn’t be dead. Everyone thought he was dead too, and here he was as alive as…well, as alive as he could be. But if Bridges did know he was alive, at least there’d be some action. Something to wake him up out of this heavy, clinging numbness. Anything. God damn it, Sam, he’d give anything just to—but he swallowed the thought and raked his hand across his face, angrily dashing away tears that weren’t black anymore.

He almost wished he’d shot those porters, come what may. Christ knew he could use the energy now. He thought vaguely about the Demens, then dismissed the idea out of hand. They thought he was dead, too, and that was fine with him. He was as good as dead anyway, as far as this world was concerned. Cut off from his source of power and from the only person he’d stopped to give two shits about in his life. Alone.

_Alone._

The word rang in his ears, mocking him as he sat waiting, staring at the screen till his eyes burned and blurred. When keeping himself upright was too great a toll on his decimated strength, he laid down on his cot and shut his eyes, still expecting every moment to hear the little confirmation chirp, notifying him that the order had been accepted.

_Alone._

After a few hours, he became anxious and fretful. It was a pizza order with a timed tag. Someone should have taken it by now. Maybe…maybe this was a good sign. Maybe Sam had seen the order and had to travel some distance to retrieve it. He would come. He would. He had to.

Getting up to check the screen over and over again, he expended a degree of effort he could ill afford, and it ran him utterly ragged. At last, his body refused to obey him any longer. He collapsed on the floor and lay there like a dead thing. His mind began to drift in and out of fevered dreams again. Images warped and coalesced before him. Echoes of voices. Hissing whispers that became shrieking, hideous laughter and croaked in his ears.

_Alone._

_Sam is gone. You are alone. Alone forever._

_Alone._

Sam. Amelie. Fragile. The dead captain with his skeleton soldiers. His uncle’s big, rough hands dragging him out of bed to beat him. But somewhere in his deeply submerged consciousness, he felt himself awaken and cry out in something that was not quite terror, but close kin to it. An icy, bracing thrill, that electrified his wandering mind and snapped it to sudden, painful awareness. He choked and sputtered, spitting out sickly-sweet liquid and pushing away the thing that dispensed it, as he tried in vain to twist away.

“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” a voice growled.

A husky voice, with an irritating, high-pitched grate in it. A voice he knew as well as his own. The canteen was forced back into his mouth, and he swallowed the drink obediently until it was taken away. He finally managed to force his heavy eyelids open, then a ghastly smile spread across his pale and wasted face.

“The fuck are you laughing at?” Sam demanded, but with no real heat.

“Sam,” he rasped, tugging petulantly at a loose cargo strap. “Sam.”

“What, Higgs, what?”

“My pizza…better not…be fuckin’ cold.”

Sam let go of Higgs abruptly and he fell back on his cot, which elicited a hoarse, drunken laugh from the god particle.

“You are such an asshole,” Sam said, taking up his icy-cold hands and beginning to chafe them vigorously in his own. “What are you trying to do, get fucking locked up?”

“I’m just tryin’ to get pizza,” Higgs slurred. “I have to eat.”

“No, you have to lay low and stay off the radar. You know you’re the most wanted man in history, right?”

“But I knew…knew you’d come.”

“Of course you fucking knew, I told you I would when I was here before.”

Higgs attempted to open his eyes and failed. “You were here before?”

“Yeah. You don’t remember?”

“Thought I dreamed it.”

“I should’ve figured. You were out of your mind. Said they were gonna bury you alive and begged me not to go. I told you I had to go but I’d come back.”

“And you came back.” 

“I said I would.”

“But…why?” Higgs managed to force his eyes open this time, and blinked up at Sam in the dim glow of the safety light.

Sam turned away and moved to stand up, but Higgs arrested his large, rough hands and held them in his pathetically weak grasp. 

“Please,” he said haltingly, as if the word were unfamiliar. “Please…don’t stop.”

Sam frowned, hesitating for a moment, then resumed the futile occupation of attempting to coax circulation back into his enemy’s unresponsive limbs. Exhausted as he was, Higgs kept his eerily large, blue eyes tenaciously fixed on Sam, as if he feared he’d vanish the moment he lost sight of him. When they began to droop at last, he gave a jolt and they shot back open, with feverish intensity.

“Sleep,” Sam said, still not meeting his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Why are you…why are you doin’ this, Sam?” Higgs asked, almost plaintively. “I killed so many people. Hell, I even killed you a few times. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve brought about the real end of the world.”

“I know.”

“So why? I know you said you would, but why’d you come in the first place?”

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but even and clear. “Because one day—it doesn’t matter if it’s a thousand years from now or a hundred thousand—one day, you and I will be the only ones left. And when humanity has finally returned to the dust and the last city has crumbled into ruin, and it’s just you and me, left to wander the earth till the heat-death of the sun, this will all seem like pretty petty shit, won’t it.”

Higgs opened his mouth, but found his voice too choked with emotion to form an answer. Thus, he could do nothing but nod stupidly in response to this perfect, beautiful (as he thought it) speech.

“Good. Then we understand each other,” Sam said, glancing up at him, then away again. “Jesus, you’re so fucking cold. I’ll put up a safehouse in the morning and get you a blood transfusion and a proper hot shower.”

“There’s…materials and all that shit in the fabricator. Take anything you need,” Higgs mumbled drowsily, then his eyes snapped open with an expression of panic as Sam pulled away and stood up. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. I’m taking off some of this gear. I told you to sleep.”

Higgs dutifully shut his eyes, then opened them again and watched as Sam unfastened buckles and unhitched his pack, then stripped off the dark-blue jumpsuit, under which he wore a sleeveless, black compression shirt and black athletic pants. The skin that was exposed was marked all over with bruises of varying age and severity, bordering bizarre, flesh-white handprints, which his observer noted with a pang.

Sam kicked off his boots, then turned and put a knee on the cot, as if he meant to lie down in it, but Higgs gave a palpable start and shied away, wide-eyed and almost panting.

“What are—what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m keeping you warm,” Sam said flatly, rolling him onto his side. “Don’t be a fucking baby about it.”

Higgs gasped as Sam’s astonishingly strong arms encircled his torso like constricting snakes. “But you can’t touch people, you can’t—your aphenphosmphobia!”

“Not a problem anymore,” Sam said with a yawn, holding him fast against his warm, solid body. “Now, will you please shut up? I’m trying to get some sleep.”


	2. Please Don't Stop (Chapter 2)

“Sam, wait!”

Sam continued briskly down the slick, spotless, white-walled hallway, as if he hadn’t heard. The entreaty was repeated, then there was a brief sound like a rush of wind, and a hand caught him by the arm. 

“Sam, I need to talk to you,” Fragile’s silky lilt insisted.

He turned and stood waiting, looking expectantly down into her wax-white, oddly lovely face. She appeared distressed. There was a tear on her cheek, but that was just the usual chiral allergy reaction. Maybe she was angry? Worried? He couldn’t exactly tell. 

“Have you heard what people have been saying?” she said, lowering her voice confidentially. 

“No.”

She peered around cautiously, as if she was really concerned about being overheard, then motioned for him to follow her. These Bridges people and their goddamned dramatics. Everyone wants to play spy games. He suppressed a sigh and obeyed, knowing she wouldn’t let him alone till she’d said what she wanted to say.

“Some porters got caught up in a BT area,” she said, stepping close to him and speaking rapidly, the moment they were outside the cargo bay door. 

It cost him an effort not to back away, but he managed it without too much outward sign of the struggle, reminding himself that he didn’t have to fear being touched anymore.

“They say a catcher almost got them, but someone saved them,” she was saying, her voice trembling with urgency. “A man, who floated down from the sky and spoke to the thing. And it obeyed him.”

She looked into his eyes, searching for some kind of reaction, but Sam gazed back at her with his customary lack of expression.

“They are saying the man wore a black hood with gold stripes on it, and a gold mask, like a skull.”

Sam’s brow furrowed, but he remained silent. She seemed to think this was as much as she could expect, and went on just as if he’d answered. 

“I saw him die, Sam. I—I thought I did. I saw him put the gun to his head, but I couldn’t watch.” She looked up at him pleadingly. “But I heard the shot. I heard it. You must have heard it, too.”

Sam shook his head. 

She wrung her gloved hands and began to pace to and fro. “What if he’s not dead? What if that son of a bitch found a way back from the Beach. What are we going to do?”

“Do?” 

“Yes, do!” she said, turning on him with sudden energy, her pale-blue eyes wide and wild. “What are we going to do if Higgs is alive?”

“The porters are saying the guy saved them?”

“Yes, that is what they say. I don’t think anyone really believes them, but no one knew Higgs like you and I did. Their description sounds just like him.”

“Maybe. But saving a couple of porters from BTs sure doesn’t.”

This flat, pragmatic reply seemed to take some of the wind from her sails. She bit her lip and looked away, crossing her arms as if to shield herself from a nonexistent gust of cold wind.

“I suppose not,” she said, after a pause. “It may not even be true. People see a lot of things out there.”

“Even if Higgs survived and got back here somehow, he can’t bring about the extinction now that Amelie’s Beach is cut off,” Sam pointed out. 

“That is certainly good news for the world.”

She didn’t seem to be appeased by the assertion, however, and Sam felt sure he was supposed to say or do something else to make her feel better, or at least sympathize.

“The whole country is on the network,” he said. “There’s not much he could do before the UCA caught up with him. But…if it helps, I’ll keep an eye out.”

He had struggled to frame the words and was unsatisfied with the result, but it appeared to have had a positive effect. She raised her eyes to look at him again, and seemed less upset than before.

“Thank you, Sam,” she said, with an attempt at a smile. “The thought of that bastard still lurking around somewhere makes me…well, anyway, it is good to know I’ve got a friend.”

He only nodded in response, and she touched his shoulder as she walked past him and back in through the heavy, steel door. He waited for it to click shut behind her, then continued to his waiting truck. 

A few kilometers down the newly-paved highway, he pulled over, dropped his cufflinks in a postbox, then got back in the truck and turned off the road into the desert, cutting southwest across the rocky plain. He stowed the vehicle between some large, timefall-pitted boulders and walked the rest of the way to the isolated shelter, tucked away in the hills within sight of the K-5 craters. 

Just inside the ring of perimeter scanners, which did not announce his arrival, he stopped and listened to the peaceful voice of the wind, whispering as it raced across the sand and ragged stones. The sun flared bright-white behind its chiral veil and an inverted rainbow glimmered in and out of view above the smaller crater. 

In the distance to the west lay the larger crater, from whose gaping maw colossal, blasted chunks of rubble rose perpetually into the deep, blue sky, like gas bubbling up from vents in the ocean floor. Here and there, among the slabs of masonry and other detritus, were mingled tar-black human forms, limp and lifeless, drifting endlessly upward. 

“Tell me this ain’t already the end of the goddamn world,” a voice called out from somewhere above, startling him from his reverie. 

He lifted his head to look for the source of voice, squinting in the midday brilliance, against which a figure was silhouetted, standing atop the roof of the shelter. 

“Look around you, Sam,” Higgs said, spreading his arms to encompass everything about him. His voice was strong and resonant now, and had taken on its former jocular, taunting edge. “Look at these pathetic creatures, cowering in their little burrows, too terrified to walk out their own front doors. This ain’t life. Hell, it’s barely even survival.”

“I guess you’re feeling better,” Sam observed.

Higgs stepped off the roof and glided down, touching the ground lightly with his booted feet. He was all in black and gleaming gold, but the hood was cast back and he wore no mask. His large, bright-blue eyes had resumed their pharaonic border of kohl, and tar tears streaked his angular face. Sam stood tense and on his guard, eyeing him warily. 

Higgs laughed and slapped his shoulder in a familiar manner, then turned to look out over the desert, in the direction of Lake Knot. “You really want to save these people?”

“No,” Sam said gruffly. “I did my part. The rest is up to them.”

“You did. You did do your part. But…” Higgs paused and steepled his gloved fingers, then rested his chin on his thumbs, as if weighing some complex problem in his mind. “Well, I never really got a chance to do mine. You see, your part was to oppose me and, as I must humbly concede, you were the victor in our little contest. But we were only playing someone else’s game.”

“I know.”

“And, in the end, what did your victory really accomplish? All that toil and blood and suffering and you bought them…what? A few pathetic millennia of existence, before the human race joins the grand procession and follows the dinosaurs into the dust, as you so biblically put it.”

“Get to the fucking point, Higgs,” Sam said, growing quickly impatient with his grandiose tone and roundabout manner of speaking.

“My point is this—and I do thank you for keeping me on topic—that man was raised from the dust, and to dust he shall return. Except you,” and here he laid a hand on his heart, “and me. We are, in essence, no longer human.”

“Speak for yourself.” 

“Well, whether you want to admit it or not, you are no longer one of them,” Higgs replied, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The rules of life and death, inscribed on the sacred tablets for every other living thing, no longer apply to us. We are something else, now. Something…_more_ than human.”

“You’re human enough. I’ve seen you bleed.”

“I remember,” Higgs said, his eyes flashing on Sam with eager ferocity. “I remember your blood, too. How it smells. How it tastes.”

“Was that your point, then?” Sam sighed. “You want to fight me again?”

“No, no. Not at the moment. What I want is to _do_ something. You and I, we have so much power between us. So much potential, sitting idle and wasted while you spend your time delivering fucking packages to these…insects.” 

His lip curled in contempt as he spat the last word through his teeth, then his face smoothed back into its customary, self-satisfied expression. 

“Why’d you save those porters?” Sam asked abruptly. 

Higgs blinked, caught genuinely off guard. “Which porters?”

“Fragile says a couple of porters are telling everyone they almost got voided by a catcher, but someone saved them. Someone who was definitely you.”

“No one knows what I look like but you and her. How do they know it was me?”

“They don’t. No one has made the connection but us. Not yet. So why did you do it?”

Higgs smiled and raised his hands in a mock gesture of helplessness. “I didn’t mean to save anyone. I didn’t even know they were there.”

“You had to know. They saw you up close and they described your mask.”

“If you’d let me finish a thought, Sam, I’d be much obliged. As I was attempting to say, I didn’t know they were there at first. Not till I’d got my little sweetheart under control and sent her away to think about mindin’ her manners. Then these two terrified men hopped out from behind a rock all covered in tar and started thankin’ me and carryin’ on like I was a hero. I was so tickled by the idea, I had to let ‘em go.”

Sam looked doubtful. “So, you just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and you let them go because you were feeling generous.”

“Well, that, and I’d already eaten,” Higgs replied, with a wicked, white-toothed smile.

Sam made a distasteful face, but otherwise ignored the remark. “What were you doing out there at all? I told you to lay low.”

“I’ve been runnin’ on fumes since I washed up back here. I gotta fill the tank somehow. And I have to take power where I can get it, since you won’t let me kill people anymore.”

“I thought Amelie gave you your power.”

A flash of annoyance and what almost looked like pain flickered across Higgs’ face, and he answered icily. “If you’d actually read the journals I gave you access to, you’d know that’s not true. No, I acquired my interesting condition elsewhere.”

“Oh, shit, I did know that,” Sam said, half apologetically. “It was your uncle. He died and instead of killing you, his voidout gave you DOOMs. What did you need Amelie for, then?”

“My power needs to be replenished or it fades. She hooked me directly into a limitless power source, much greater than anything I had on my own. She told me…but I’d rather not dredge up the past right now, if you don’t mind. Unpleasant memories and all that.”

“Wait, what do you mean, I won’t let you kill people?” Sam asked dubiously, suddenly recurring to a point he’d inadvertently passed over. “How the fuck could I stop you?” 

Higgs gave a brief, bitter laugh and shook his head. “Christ, Sam. You’re so goddamned stupid sometimes, I don’t even know what to do with you.”

“I’m not fucking stupid,” Sam retorted, crossing his arms defensively. “I beat you, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Higgs said, with a theatrical bow. “And my hat is off to you. But you didn’t win because of any particular intellectual gifts of your own. You won because the one with all the real power never really wanted you to lose. Because she…because she loved you.”

Sam made no reply, and they stood gazing out over the desolate, windswept desert in oddly comfortable silence. Without thinking, Sam reached out and laid a hand on Higgs’ shoulder. Higgs gave a little start, but he didn’t pull away, or make any other sign that the touch was unwelcome. 

To his immediate further discomfiture, however, he found himself suddenly drawn in and entangled in another of Sam’s crushing (seriously how the fuck was he so strong) embraces. He didn’t resist, but he bore the gesture awkwardly, arms stiff at his sides, as if he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. 

“Sam,” he ventured, after a moment. “Why are you…you know. Squeezing me with your body?”

“You seemed like you needed a hug,” Sam said (into Higgs’ shoulder, as the man had a good six inches on him in height). 

“Oh. Um. Thank you.” 

To return the embrace seemed like the correct thing to do, so Higgs placed his hands gingerly on Sam’s muscular back. His face and neck immediately flushed with heat and he pulled away hastily, smoothing and straightening his black and gold cloak. This reaction appeared to amuse Sam very much. 

“Oh, come on,” he chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been hugged before.”

“No, I don’t…think I have, now that you mention it,” Higgs answered distractedly. “Not that I can recall.”

His stomach was doing flips like a drunk gymnast, but what most occupied his mind at the moment was another physical reaction, which troubled him immensely. Not that he’d never…had that happen, he was a healthy young man after all, he’d just never experienced it in reference to another person. Particularly not in response to physical contact with another person. 

Touch, as life had taught him brutally and early on, was used to intimidate, wound, or manipulate. To express power. It had never crossed his mind that he might like to be touched by someone. That he might…

“Hey, you ok?” Sam asked, looking up into his face. 

“No,” he blurted out. “Yes. I don’t know.”

“Well, let me know if you make up your mind,” Sam smirked.

Higgs leaned on the steel wall and eyed him sidelong. Nothing about the man fit into the aesthetic ideas he had formed concerning human beauty. His muscular body was too compact and utilitarian to allow of anything like grace or nobility. He was a solid, reliable workhorse, rather than a proud Arabian. 

His face was…average. He usually looked tired and was often frowning, and his eyes were always a bit puffy with his chiral allergy. His mouth was firm and well-formed, though, and gave him a look of resolute determination that was admirable. Overall, it was an honest face, not too expressive, but neither was it given to any dramatic affectation.

Despite his shortcomings adding up to a less than beautiful whole in theory, Sam in reality seemed to defy this calculation. There was something intangible in him that made him greater than the sum of his parts. Perhaps it was his frank and forthright, if taciturn manner. Or his tremendous personal strength. Or the way he seemed utterly unable to understand facial expressions at one moment, then able to read the depths of a man’s soul the next. 

Plain and sturdy as he was, he was an intensely captivating man. The opinions of other people seemed to support this assessment. Everyone Higgs had ever met (everyone who mattered, anyway) loved Sam. Then a new idea struck him like a lightning bolt. His mind was instantly ablaze with it, and it seemed to be igniting others, one after another, like dry tinder catching fire. 

This tether. This constant, aching tug in the center of his chest, that compelled him to seek this man, to be near him any way he could, no matter what the reason or consequences, that had tormented him with a kind of pain he had no name for when he had thought him lost forever…he knew the word for this bond. He had half admitted it to himself long ago, but had never probed the idea to any further depth.

Amelie had known it. She had seen the first strand of attachment and taunted him with it, tempting him to strengthen it, then compelling him to prove his devotion to her by inflicting exquisite suffering upon Sam. Straining the fragile thread to its breaking point. He had borne the pain willingly, as a sacrifice to his cruel god, but only now did he fully comprehend the magnitude of her cruelty. 

The thread had been broken. In her service, he had been such and done that which would make it impossible for the love with which she tormented him to be returned by its object. Then she had severed the cord that bound him to death and sent him back to the world of the living, doomed to an eternity of solitude. A true monster among mortal men. 

He felt suddenly hollow. Gutted and crushed, and he found all the strength gone from his limbs. Sam caught him as he swayed, and sat down on the hard-packed dirt with him. 

“No, I’m alright,” he said, pushing away the threatened canteen. “I got dizzy, is all. I must’ve taken more than I could handle from the BTs.”

“You sure?” Sam said, not appearing convinced. “You’re really pale. Even for you.”

“It’s just—ain’t it funny how sometimes one stupid little thing can slap you in the face and wake you up, so you see the big picture all at once? And then you can’t believe how you didn’t see it sooner and you feel like a world-class dumbshit?”

“I guess. What big picture?”

Higgs ignored the question, letting his head drop back onto Sam’s collarbone. “I wish…I wish I could die and leave all this for good, y’know?”

“I know. But you can’t, so there’s no point in torturing yourself wishing it. I mean, if you want to play dead for a while, we can always jump off a cliff or something, but eventually you’re gonna have to learn to accept it. I did.”

“Shit, that’s right. You’ve been doin’ this since you were a baby. How many times have you been to the Seam?”

“No idea. Hundreds. Maybe more.”

“I’ve only been once. Is it always the same? Like a Beach?” 

“It’s always like being underwater. Otherwise, it’s basically whatever place you died, but blurry.”

“Makes sense mine looked like a Beach then, since that’s where I died.”

“I know.”

“I hope Fragile isn’t taking credit for shooting me. She talks tough, but she never had the grit to really kill a man. I did it myself.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you well informed,” Higgs said drily. “There anything you don’t know?” 

“I don’t know how the fuck you can weigh this much. What are you made of, dark matter?”

“Yes,” Higgs grinned up at him. “I’m the god particle, Sam.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Sam muttered. “You’re crushing my leg, get off me.”

With a flash of fire and a brief, reality-tearing roar, Higgs vanished, reappearing almost instantly a meter to Sam’s left, with the same blazing flourish. Sam rolled his eyes and got to his feet the traditional way, with far less grace and no accompanying fanfare.

“Speaking of Fragile,” he said, as he slapped the dust from the seat of his jumpsuit. “She suspects it was you the porters saw. She’s not gonna be happy if she finds out she was right.”

“No, I imagine my reemergence wouldn’t please her. I don’t think she’d feel obligated to be quiet about it, either.”

“If she puts the UCA on your track, they’ll never stop chasing you.”

“As if I intend to run,” Higgs scoffed. “What can they do to me?”

“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged. “They can make things pretty miserable for you.”

“Can they.”

“Well, maybe not, but they can order me to stop seeing you and make things miserable for me unless I comply, which I don’t plan on doing.”

Higgs felt heat rising into his face again and turned away. 

“The point is, you can’t stay hidden forever,” Sam continued. “One way or another, they’re gonna find out you’re back.”

“Naturally,” Higgs said, with a patient sigh. “But what would you propose I do about it?”

“I have an idea. It’s gonna sound nuts, though, so you have to hear me out.”

“You have my undivided attention.”

“If I brought you in myself, I mean if you came willingly, and I took you directly to Die-Hardman, I think we could work something out with him.”

Higgs kept admirable control of himself and answered calmly. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful for the offer, Sam, but I don’t understand why your intervention would incline the president-elect to make any concessions in my favor.”

“Would you believe he owes me one?”

Higgs stared at him, then laughed outright. 

“You know who I am and what I’ve done,” he said, gesturing to the caldera of the massive crater, with its ceaseless effusion of charred debris. “He’d have to owe you a pretty fuckin’ big one.”

“He does,” Sam replied, undaunted. “But he won’t be able to agree to anything if the news that you’re alive goes public first. That’s why you and I should act quickly, before Fragile gets wise to you and broadcasts it all over UCA.”

Higgs was silent for a long moment. 

“Not to belabor a point, but…why?” he said at last, looking Sam keenly in the eye. “Why would you want to call in a favor that astronomical for me?”

“I can’t believe you call me fucking stupid,” Sam said irritably. “Will you do it, or not?”

“But if you’re wrong, and you can’t convince the commander-in-chief to be reasonable, what then?”

“I’m not wrong. He owes me a debt in blood. One that can never be repaid. Agreeing to live and let live with you is the least he can do for me.”

“What about Fragile?”

“She’ll probably never forgive me. But if that’s what I have to lose…it won’t stand in my way.”

Higgs laughed uneasily. “My goodness, Sam. You keep talkin’ that way, I’m likely to think you’re becoming fond of me.”

Sam did not laugh. He glanced up into his face and then quickly away. But that fleeting look stopped Higgs’ laughter and shut his mouth as effectively as if Sam had struck him.

He took a breath to steady himself before he spoke again. “It does sounds insane to me, and will probably be worse than useless. But if you think it’s best to try, I will defer to your judgement.”

“Good.”

“When should I expect this illustrious meeting to take place?”

“I don’t know, a couple of days. A week at the most. I’ll talk to him and let you know. Just try to stay out of sight till then. Can you do that?”

“I will be the picture of discretion.” 

“And don’t kill anyone.”

“You’re no fun at all.”

“I know. I’ve got to go. I’ll be back later.”

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you be bringing pizza, by any chance?” 

“You fucking know I will.”


	3. Because We Have To

The metallic clatter of the cufflinks on the hard surface of the table rang out, clear and sharp in the tense stillness of the room. The kind of strained, waiting silence that is produced when a group of people seem to be holding their collective breath.

Sam stared at the table. Deadman muttered something indistinct and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. Fragile sat motionless, as if she’d been carved from wax, gazing straight ahead into the middle-distance.

For a long while, no one spoke. Then Lockne’s chiral hologram flickered briefly, as if a spike had disrupted communications on her end, and Sam glanced up at her. She appeared to be wiping away a tear.

“Lockne, if you have anything to say, this is the time,” Die-Hardman said, throwing as much presidential authority into his voice as he could muster.

“We feel it,” Lockne answered, in her slow, dreamy way. “Their connection. Målingen thinks it’s even stronger than ours.”

“That can’t be possible,” Heartman interjected, his hologram shifting restlessly in its seated position. “You two are an extraordinary case. This is…well, I don’t know what this is. It’s certainly not anything my scientific training has equipped me to explain.”

“But we understand it,” Lockne said softly. Her large, otherworldly eyes, one bright green and one pale blue, stayed fixed on Sam. “Better than anyone else could.”

“Would you, uh…” Die-Hardman cleared his throat. “Would you care to enlighten us?”

“The five of us are connected to Sam by blood,” she said, tapping the little gold charm on the right side of her black tunic. “And we are all connected to each other by Sam. He’s the center link. If he goes, it all falls apart. Their connection is something…much stronger. If we try to sever it, we’ll only be cutting our own cords.”

“Jesus Christ,” Die-Hardman murmured. He leaned forward and rested his face in his hands for a moment, then looked up at Sam. “So you’re telling me that in order to keep you, we have to allow this fucking terrorist—this mass-murderer—to live as a free man in our very young and unstable nation. That we have to agree that he will never be made to face justice.”

“You want justice?” Sam asked, not moving his gaze from the table. “Or revenge.”

The president sat in chastened silence for a moment, then leaned back in his chair, looking around at the other assembled faces, two by hologram and two in the flesh. His gaze came to rest on one.

“Fragile,” he said. “You have more of a right to weigh in here than any of us. What do you say?”

“I don’t give a shit what you do,” she said in a tight, tremulous voice. She stood abruptly, plucking the gold charm from her jacket, and flung it onto the table. “I am done with this. With all of you. Let that bastard into your cities. Let him into your homes, for all I care. See what happens.”

“Fragile, wait,” Lockne said, reaching out a holographic hand that passed right through their friend as she strode rapidly from the room. The door slammed shut behind her, and Lockne turned back to the group. “She needs time to process all of this. We’ll talk to her.”

“I take it that means you two are in favor of what Sam’s proposing,” Die-Hardman said, to which Lockne nodded their assent. “Deadman, Heartman, what say you?”

“It’s a yes from me, as well,” Heartman replied first. “As Lockne said, Sam is bound to all of us. He says the man wasn’t in his right mind when he did those things, so maybe there is hope for him. We can ill afford to sever our own connections at a time like this. Especially not in the name of revenge.”

“I trust Sam,” Deadman said simply. “Whatever he wants to do is ok with me.”

Die-Hardman nodded. “Then we are in agreement. The terrorist leader Higgs Monaghan has been officially listed as deceased, and the record will not be amended. Mr. Peter Englert, who happens to bear a strong resemblance to the late Mr. Monaghan, is not considered to be a person of interest, and will not be pursued for detainment nor questioning by the UCA. May god have mercy on our souls.”

Heartman and Lockne made their farewells, then their holograms disintegrated. Sam and Deadman rose to depart as well, but Die-Hardman laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder to stop him.

“You dropped something,” he said, pushing the cufflinks into Sam’s hand. “Be more careful with those from now on, ok? Porters keep finding them in postboxes.”

With a reluctant hand, Sam lifted them and snapped both cuffs onto his wrist.

“Good,” Die-Hardman said with a broad smile, patting his back affectionately. “It’s good to have you back, Sam. Oh, and inform Mr. Englert that we’ll be sending someone out to deliver his in a day or two.”

“His what?” Sam frowned, not understanding.

“His cufflinks. He is now a member of the UCA, contracted through Bridges. He’ll need them.”

Sam almost laughed out loud. “You really expect him to start delivering cargo?”

“No, I don’t,” Die-Hardman replied, with perfect equanimity. “But I do expect to be apprised of his whereabouts at all times, and I do expect him to assist you in whatever contracts you choose to undertake. Officially, he will be acting as your security detail.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Not even a little bit. I have a newborn nation to keep together, Sam. Extinction Entity or no, this man is still dangerous and for all I know, criminally insane. I agreed to let him be for your sake. That means he’s your responsibility. You want him to remain a free man, don’t let him fuck up.”

Sam looked away through the holographic window into the illusory Whitehouse garden for a beat, then back at the president. “You’d better let me take the cufflinks myself.”

When he arrived at the shelter of Mr. Peter Englert, it was nearly dark and timefall was pouring down in sheets. As he stepped out onto the safehouse platform to stow the truck, his hood inflated with an obnoxiously cheery squeak, then deflated again with a rather dejected squeak as he rode the elevator down with the vehicle.

Higgs wasn’t in the safehouse. He came back up and trotted across the muddy stretch of ground to the shelter. The perimeter scanners greeted him with a ping, notifying him that they had locked the weapon activation function on his cufflinks. Higgs was nowhere to be found in the shelter, either.

Sam sighed heavily as he sat down on the floor to wait. He’d been growing increasingly concerned about the man’s mental state since his body had recovered, and more importantly, since he had regained command of his DOOMs abilities. Power had driven Higgs out of his mind before, and Sam feared that it would do so again.

Higgs had been far too young and damaged to resist that kind of power, or to hang on to his sense of self once in its grasp. He had lost himself within the Extinction Entity. Molded his thoughts and even his emotions to its design. Become its mouthpiece and right hand, and committed unspeakable atrocities in its name. The ruins that lay within the two nearby craters were a constant reminder of that. And the ruin he’d made of Fragile.

Sam swallowed a pang, remembering in vivid detail, the look of pain and confusion on her delicate face as he’d opened his topic with the five other members of the circle. Her stunned silence at first and her bitter words at last. He had deserved all of it and much more.

He knew how it must hurt her to be betrayed this way, by him. He could try to talk to her, but nothing he could say now would help. She could never be made to understand the nature of the connection between the man she considered to be her only true friend, and the man who had mutilated her and all but destroyed everything she had ever cared for.

Lockne understood, and he hadn’t even had to ask if Målingen did. He knew their thoughts on the subject as well as he knew his own mind. But they were as connected to the other side as he was. More so, since they lived every moment that way. Half in this world and half in the other. Lockne had been correct in her assertion, too. If they got into a tug-of-war against this connection, it would be their threads that snapped.

Not by any will of Sam’s own, that was simply the way it was. By a trick of fate or some other unfathomable design, he and Higgs were connected in a way he had only felt once before. When he closed his eyes, he could almost see it. A brilliant, golden strand, binding them to one another, drawing them together, whether they wished it or no.

He had known the exact moment Higgs had repatriated. He’d woken from a dead sleep with his heart pounding like a war drum and his chest on fire. Not metaphorically, either. It literally burned, as if he’d left a thermal pad active and fallen asleep on it. Lou was wailing in her tank and when he went to soothe her, she curled up burbled mournfully at him. She felt it, too.

He had tried to locate Higgs, but he didn’t have Fragile’s talent for that kind of thing. All he knew was that the gentle, aching tug in the center of his being had returned with a vengeance, and was exerting all its will to drag him toward the other end of the tether.

He’d packed up immediately and driven out to the shelter Higgs had made him deliver all those pizzas to, but found it as cold and deserted as it had been the day he’d revealed his little joke and given Sam access to what he called ‘his secrets’.

Sam guessed the joke was kind of funny, but for the fact that he had known all along who was the elusive pizza enthusiast with the affectedly florid writing style. He wondered if Higgs knew he’d been on to him since the first delivery. He should tell him. That really would be a good joke.

Also, who pays for pizza in schematics for really excellent guns? Who pays for anything, for that matter? Except a man who can’t bear the thought of an unfair fight and wants to level the playing field a little. He’d always respected that about Higgs. Despite all his monstrous deeds under the influence of the EE, he had once been a man to whom honorable conduct was an essential part of his character.

It was that man, the one Higgs had been before, who he had gone to plead for with the circle. To fight for, if need be. Thankfully he hadn’t needed to fight. They (and the nation and the entire human race, if he was being honest) were far too much in his debt to deny him the only thing he’d ever asked in return. To be allowed to try to save one more person. And try he would, though the attempt prove futile, or even disastrous. He would try. He had to.

He wasn’t aware he had dozed off till he was awakened by a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

“If it ain’t Sam ‘I can sleep any-goddamn-where’ Bridges,” Higgs laughed through his skull mask. “What are you doin’ passed out on my floor? Safehouse get too comfortable?”

“You weren’t here,” Sam yawned. “I was waiting.”

“Waiting for me? I’m flattered. At least, I would be if you hadn’t tracked mud all over the place. You ever hear of wipin’ your feet before you enter a gentleman’s home?”

“Yeah, and I’ll wipe my feet if I ever do that,” Sam retorted, peering around at the general disorder. “You ever hear of cleaning up after yourself? It looks like a city dump in here.”

“Well, you know,” Higgs shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly planning on coming back.”

Sam shivered. “It’s cold, too. Come down to the safehouse with me. I need a shower and we have to talk.”

“At the same time?” Higgs said, feigning shock. “That’s a little forward, don’t you think?”

“I brought pizza.”

“My one weakness.”

“And a fresh batch of Timefall porter.”

“My other weakness. How’d you know?”

“I had a feeling,” Sam smirked, as they ascended the stairs to the entrance. “And you drank all the beer I had in there last time. Cheap shit, too, I can’t believe you did that.”

“Desperate times, Samuel. Anything’s better than that rotten rat piss you keep in your canteen.”

“Sam isn’t short for Samuel and that rotten rat piss is Monster Energy Drink.”

“The fuck you mean Sam isn’t short for Samuel? What’s it short for, then, Samantha?”

“It’s not short for anything. It’s just Sam.”

“That’s a shame. Though, I did get the short end of the name stick, too. Guess we both had folks who were into brevity.”

“My parents didn’t name me. The people at the hospital did.”

They had reached the private room in the safehouse, now, and Higgs threw himself into a chair, shaking his head.

“What?” Sam asked, as he popped the tab on a can of beer and set it before him.

“I thought I had it bad,” Higgs said. He pulled off his gold skull mask, then his black respirator mask. “But even my momma gave enough of a shit to think of something for my uncle to yell at me when he wanted to slap someone around. Why didn’t your folks name you?”

“They were dead.”

“I see. Well, that does put a hitch in—Jesus, Sam! Warn a person before you start taking off your clothes, would you?”

“You shy or something?” Sam laughed, addressing the back of Higgs’ demurely turned head.

“I am not shy,” Higgs rejoined. “But I am, despite your little jibe, a gentleman. I do not choose to see others in a state of nature unless I am specifically invited to do so.”

“Help yourself to the pizza. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Higgs waited till he heard the door slide shut and the water start, then turned back to the table, where he opened the red and white box and procured a slice of the offered refreshment. He chewed on the crust, observing Sam’s blurred outline through the shower’s privacy screen as he performed his ablutions.

“Y’know, that glass doesn’t conceal as much as I think you believe,” he called out.

“You better turn back around unless you want to see a lot more,” Sam called back as the air-dryer kicked on, giving Higgs just enough time to avert his eyes before the doors slid open again.

Sam returned to the table clad in his usual black garments and opened a beer for himself, but he didn’t immediately begin the conversation he knew they had to have. He figured it’d go down better after food and a few beers. Things always did with him.

“Sam,” Higgs said, with a sudden frown. “Where’s your BB? You haven’t had it with you since I’ve been back.”

“Up at Lake Knot. A friend is taking care of her.”

Higgs looked perplexed. “Her? Who’s her, the BB?”

“Yes. Her name is Lou.”

“You fuckin’ named it?”

“Her,” Sam said curtly. “And yes, I did.”

“I meant no offense. But I thought you people treated those things like pieces of equipment.”

“I don’t. Lou is not a thing, she’s a baby. She has feelings and needs and memories, just like any human being.”

“Ain’t that somethin’,” Higgs mused. “Now that you mention it, I do remember a bit about that. She used your odradek like a shield when I shot you in Edge Knot. What a little firecracker.”

“She’s a good girl,” Sam said, with his mouth full of pizza. “But she’s not a big fan of yours.”

“For many obvious reasons. That why you never brought her around?”

“Yeah.”

“Risky. You can’t see BTs without her.”

“I know where they usually hang out. I just avoid those areas.”

“And I do the opposite. They could be anywhere when it’s raining like this, though.”

Sam shrugged unconcernedly. “Yeah, but I have you to protect me now.”

Higgs’ cheeks flushed, and he attempted to hide it by taking a long draught of his beer. Sam either didn’t notice, or chose not to mention it.

“I can’t do anything about it if I’m too far away,” he said when he’d drained the can, tossing it into the garbage bin. “They could void you out before I realized you were in trouble.”

“Would you do anything about it? You get your power from voidouts and I’ll just repatriate.”

“You will. And leave a beautiful, smoking crater in your resurrected wake. You trying to tempt me?”

“I just wanted to know what you’d do.”

“I would do—” Higgs stopped short and turned away, seeming to look for another beer.

He had almost said ‘I would do whatever you want me to do.’ Like an idiot schoolgirl with a crush. In perfect truth, he knew he would do whatever Sam wanted him to do. Anything. But he’d be damned if Sam knew it. The fresh can of beer acquired, he opened it and pretended to finish the thought.

“I would do whatever struck my fancy at the time, I suppose.”

It came out less naturally than he’d have liked, but Sam made no further inquiry. He seemed to have become intently focused on his meal, so they ate and drank in silence. When the pizza had been duly devoured, Sam folded up the empty box and stuffed it into the garbage bin, followed by the remaining empty cans.

“You gonna turn in?” Higgs asked.

Sam shook his head. “We have to talk, and I brought you something.”

He picked up a small cargo container and placed it on the table between them as he reseated himself. His whole manner was altered, though, and Higgs felt it keenly. This was going to be something he would not like. He sat up straighter and crossed his arms, eyeing the box warily.

“I went to Die-Hardman, like we talked about,” Sam began.

“And?”

“And I have good news. Also news I don’t think you’ll call good.”

“Well?”

“He’s agreed to leave you alone. Mostly. You were declared dead after everything fell out, and officially, you’ll stay that way. You won’t be harassed or pursued by Bridges, and they won’t try to question you. As far as the rest of the UCA will know, you are Peter Englert.”

Higgs narrowed his long, almond shaped eyes to slits, like a serpent. “What do you mean, leave me alone, mostly?”

“There’s a condition,” Sam said hesitantly. “They want me to take you along when I accept contracts. And they…they want you to wear these.”

He opened the container. Higgs saw, nestled into the impact-foam lining, a pair of glistening, black cufflinks, exactly like the ones Sam wore. He was silent for a long moment, his posture stiff and his jaw muscles working beneath his skin. At last, his blue eyes flickered up to Sam’s face, fixing him with an icy glare.

“You want…to let them put me on a leash. A fucking leash. Like a fucking dog.”

“They have to know where you are, Higgs. You blew up a city with a nuclear bomb. You tried to end the world. I think this is pretty mild, considering.”

“Oh, do you,” Higgs said, his usually sonorous voice now harsh and strident with sarcasm. “Well, if you think it’s pretty mild, then I’ll just bow my neck for the yoke.”

“Higgs, it was the only way—”

“I don’t want a way!” Higgs roared, leaping up from his chair. “I don’t give a fraction of a fuck about Bridges or the UCA, or this world or anyone in it! They can send a whole army after me and you know exactly what that’ll get them! A wasteland filled with craters just like the two out there!”

“Higgs, please—”

“I am not a man to be fucking trifled with,” Higgs went on, not heeding the entreaty. “I do not take orders from your petty little president. As far as they are concerned, I am the fucking god of death. I can and will crush every one of their cities into dust. I will visit destruction upon this world such as they have never—”

His voice was stopped abruptly as Sam’s strong hands caught hold of his shoulders and threw him back against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. He held him there, pinned with his body, and took his jaw in his hand. Higgs blinked at him, too astonished for the moment to even think to teleport out of the hold.

“Higgs, listen to me,” Sam said, his voice hoarse and wavering with emotion. “I am not letting them do anything to you. I am asking you to do something for me. I am begging you. Please. Please, do this for me.”

Higgs’ mouth opened, but no sound came out. Sam released his jaw and laid the calloused hand gently on the side of his face, almost cradling it as he looked searchingly into his eyes.

“Please,” he repeated, in a whisper. “Please do this for me.”

Higgs shut his mouth and swallowed hard, then squeezed his eyes closed and let his head fall back against the wall with a hollow thud. “God…_damn it_.”

“You’ll do it?” Sam asked, brightening.

“Fucking. Fine. Jesus, you don’t play fair at all. Ow! Fuck’s sake—I can’t breathe. Let me go.”

Sam released him from the sudden, forceful embrace and went to the table to retrieve the cuffs.

“These are just so Die-Hardman can be sure where you are if he needs to know,” he explained. “You’ll have to come with me when I do deliveries, but you’ll be acting as my security detail, so it’s not like they expect you to haul cargo.”

“Fuck me,” Higgs groaned, falling into his chair and dropping his forehead onto his folded arm.

Sam lifted the other and snapped the cold, heavy, steel cuffs around his wrist.

“There,” he said. “Welcome to the UCA, Mr. Englert. Or—I think it’s Security Officer Englert now?”

“Call me whatever you want,” Higgs said petulantly into his arm. “I can’t fuckin’ believe I let you talk me into this.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Sam laughed. “At least you’ll have something to do.”

“I have plenty to do,” Higgs grumbled, lifting his head to inspect the offensive cuffs. “They can’t hear everything we’re saying, can they?”

“Fuck no. Deadman added an EM shielding function to my PCCs. They can’t hear us in here.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. They can’t even call while I’m in a safehouse I built, and trust me they would have, like eight times by now.”

Higgs continued to eye the cuffs suspiciously. “They’re heavy. And ugly. I hate this.”

“You’ll get used to it. Hey, you want to watch a movie?”

“…yes.”


	4. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

  
Wind ripped through the massive, heavy-limbed trees, snapping off needles and twigs and strips of bark, and flinging debris into Sam’s face. He cursed under his breath and trudged on, grasping both cargo straps to steady his descent down the steep, rocky path. The clouds overhead had gone from white to murky grey in a matter of seconds, signaling that timefall was imminent.

With an earsplitting crack of thunder, the sky opened. The path, at first merely treacherous, became deadly, as the downpour slicked the rocks and made footholds nearly impossible to find. Sam pressed on, picking his way slowly and carefully down the slope. The timefall would eat through the metal containers on his back in a matter of minutes, but the cargo would do no one any good smashed to bits on the forest floor, far below.

With a low roar and a shuddering flash of fire, a black-hooded figure materialized on the path before him. Sam’s odradek shrieked and whirled. Lou gave a wail of distress and her tank blacked out protectively.

“Higgs,” Sam panted, leaning on an outcropping to catch his breath. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Oh, here and there,” Higgs drawled, in his maddeningly nonchalant manner. “Havin’ a look around.”

“You see anything useful?”

“That depends. How useful is a canyon full of shriekers to you?”

“God damn it. How many and where?”

“Fifty or sixty and everywhere,” Higgs said languidly. “Funny thing. There’s not usually more than twenty or so around here at a time. Seems like somethin’ got ‘em riled up.”

“I bet I can guess what,” Sam muttered, casting an eye into the gloom beneath the trees.

“Well, I don’t like to take all the credit for drawing a crowd, but my fans do tend to follow me around.”

“Can you deal with them?”

Higgs’ gold skull mask tilted inquiringly to one side. “When you say deal with them…”

“I mean can you keep them off my back till I make it to the wind farm,” Sam said impatiently. “I have emergency medical supplies that they need yesterday.”

Higgs laughed, but with something growling and bloodthirsty in his voice. “Oh, Sammy. You just love pitchin’ me softballs, don’t ya. Go ahead and walk all your precious cargo straight down the middle, like the Hebrews walkin’ out of Egypt. I’ll part this dead sea for you.”

He vanished again, and Sam continued his descent down to the narrow path, to where the slope leveled out beneath the trees. Higgs reappeared and gestured for him to follow. The moment they stepped under the dense, rain-soaked canopy, the wails and shrieks of the dead rose to a howling din all around them, and their flickering grey forms became visible, writhing and coiling amongst the trees. Sam’s odradek chirped frantically, wildly snapping its fins open and shut.

“Oh, ye of little faith!” Higgs laughed, spreading his arms as he rose into the air. “Stretch out thy hand and I will divide the waters for thee, and you shall walk upon dry land!”

At once, thick, black tar began to boil up from the ground on both sides. The forest floor was swallowed in the inundation, boulders and fallen tree trunks vanishing into the roiling blackness. But before Sam’s feet, a straight path of dry earth remained, cutting directly through the heart of the wood, just as Higgs had said. He squared his pack on his shoulders and walked on, keeping his eyes fixed on the path before him, ignoring the howling clamor of the BTs and the panicked whirring of his odradek.

When he was almost through, the ground bucked and trembled beneath his feet. With a roar like a thousand enraged beasts, a catcher exploded from the sea of tar, thrashing and grasping about with what seemed to be hundreds of black tentacles, each as thick as a man’s torso. The odradek went into overload and shut down. Sam stood his ground. If Higgs wanted his trust, now was the time to earn it.

He held his breath, and for a moment that seemed to draw itself out to an eternity, faced down the abyssal beast that loomed before him, like a writhing mountain of horror. Then the dull roar and flash of fire rent the atmosphere and Higgs was there. Standing between him and death.

“Hello, darlin’!” he boomed, his voice clear and strong, even over the raging of the beast. “You miss me?”

The creature threw out all its tentacles and screamed, hurling its massive body through the air, but its focus was entirely on Higgs now. Sam turned and hurried down the path, not running, but at a pace that clearly showed his desire to be immediately elsewhere.

Heedless of Sam’s escape, the creature bore down on Higgs like a freight train. He rose from the ground to meet it and held up a black and gold-gloved hand. Just before it crashed into him, it drew up short, threw back its massive front-section, and howled. Higgs ignored it, watching until Sam vanished from view. The thing roared and thrashed, tearing a tree up by the roots and sending it crashing into the forest behind him.

“You mind your manners, missy,” Higgs said, as if addressing an erring child.

The chastised beast let out a sound like a small earthquake and flung its gargantuan, slick-black bulk onto the ground before him, where it writhed and rolled to and fro, very much like a toddler in a tantrum.

“I am aware that you’re hungry,” Higgs replied coolly. “That one’s mine. He ain’t on the menu.”

Huge, black tentacles snaked toward him, grasping his body and pulling at his clothing with their hideous, finger-like ends, but there was far more of pleading than menace in the gesture. He let the creature draw him down till he alit on the ground before it, then pulled off his masks and dropped them. 

“I know, darlin’,” he said, reaching up to stroke one of the oily tendrils. “I know it hurts.”

Its body shuddered all over. He reached out and laid both hands on the gleaming mask of crystallized chiralium that appeared to cover its face. It bucked and shied like a spooked horse, but he held it fast by its mask like a bridle, whispering to it and soothing it.

“You’re suffering because this ain’t your world,” he said softly, almost sadly. “You’re not supposed to be here and it’s making you sick.”

This seemed to agitate the creature again, and it began to flail about and lash the trees with its tentacles.

“Shh, shh, it’s ok,” Higgs hummed, still holding it firmly. “She’s gone. I can…I can send you home, now.”

At this, the thing gave a low, guttural howl, so filled with uncomprehending, animal suffering, that the hardest man’s heart would have broken to hear it. If there were real tears mingled with the black tar that streaked Higgs’ face, no observer would have been able to say.

“I know you’re scared. I promise, it’ll only hurt for second. Then you’ll be free.”

He leaned over, touching his forehead to the creature’s enormous mask, then with a quick, sharp motion, he tore it off. A tremendous, shuddering scream burst forth from the beast, and from the roiling tar all around it, seeming to contain thousands of voices crying out in unison. A hell-wrought wail that pierced the heart and froze the blood. And yet, there was something else audible in that cry. Something indefinable, that would almost incline a hearer to imagine that it was not entirely a cry of pain.

The creature’s hulking, black body froze and shattered like glass. At the same moment, the giant chiral mask in Higgs’ hands disintegrated. The glittering fragments rose and wafted away on the breeze, as if the entire forest was breathing a sigh of relief.

Higgs stirred and looked about him. The rain had stopped as abruptly as it had started, and glimmers of sunlight peeped through the branches of the towering trees. The tar had vanished from the ground. He picked up his masks from the springy carpet of dead pine needles and moss and put them back on, then went in search of Sam.

He found him sitting on the concrete steps outside the wind farm’s cargo bay. His legs were stretched out before him and he was sipping from his canteen, like he hadn’t a care in the world. He nodded in greeting as Higgs came strolling up to meet him.

“What was all that noise?” he asked. “Was that the catcher?”

“It was,” Higgs said. “I’m sure you’ve heard them before.”

“I’ve heard them screech a lot, but not like that. What did you do to it?”

“I dealt with it. Did you…do whatever you were doing here?”

“Yep. Medical supplies delivered, lives saved. The usual.”

Higgs looked irritated, even behind his mask. “And the recipients of your generosity thanked you by hospitably allowing you to sit on the ground outdoors and see to your own refreshment.”

“I don’t want to hang around in there anyway,” Sam shrugged. “What do I care?”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Sam,” Higgs said, firing up. “I know these people are hardly more than savages, but even without good breeding, they should have enough basic decency to—oh, I see. You’re fucking with me.”

“Yeah, I totally am,” Sam admitted, unable to contain his laughter. “They invited me in, obviously. I said no. I thought I should wait for you.”

“Well, here I am,” Higgs said, with a sarcastic bow. “Sam Bridges’ personal security, reporting for duty.”

“You want to get out of here?”

“Exceedingly. Where to?”

“Back up that hill…and down the other side. Actually, I think I’ll sit here for another minute before we get started.”

“Oh, no. If you think I am watching you labor your way up that fucking mountain the way you struggled down, you are sorely mistaken. We are done with inclines of any kind for the day. Tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you there.”

Sam frowned. “You can bring people? When you use the Beach?”

“You know I can.”

“I didn’t.”

“You know now. Shall we?”

“Yeah, please,” Sam said, getting eagerly to his feet. “Home. Your home, I mean. All my stuff is in that safehouse.”

“Home it is,” Higgs replied, hooking an arm around him.

In a very disorienting split second, Sam found himself standing in the safehouse, blinking away chiral allergy tears. The moment they arrived, Higgs vanished again without saying another word. Sam felt a little pang of disappointment, but he understood. Higgs probably wanted to be alone for a while after what he’d been through. And he certainly didn’t want to talk to Sam about it. He wasn’t even aware that Sam had observed the entire scene.

Sam really hadn’t meant to spy. He had delivered the cargo to the head of distribution and run back to see how Higgs was faring in the woods. Rather than the violent conflict he’d expected, he found Higgs touching the catcher and speaking gently to it, like a pet. He had been so awed by this astounding revelation about the man and his relationship with these monsters, he was unable to stop himself watching.

All this time, he had been thinking of Higgs as a kind of circus ringmaster, whipping lions and elephants and forcing them to do tricks, but that interchange between him and the beast drastically altered this perception. It was the kindest and most merciful he’d ever seen the man be. He hadn’t even known Higgs was capable of that kind of tenderness, or that depth of compassion for another creature.

He placed Lou’s tank in its connection port and made sure everything was hooked up properly, then fell onto his bed with a sigh. He had probably better tell Higgs that he’d seen. He’d be angry, though, and it might do more harm than good. But it would be dishonest to keep it from him. He wished he could ask someone what to do.

He immediately thought of Lockne and for the first time, regretted the EM shielding on his safehouses. He could just go and call her from outside, but Higgs might overhear, rendering the conversation useless. He heard Lou warbling in her tank and looked over. She had her tiny hands and forehead pressed up against the glass, and was looking at him.

“Hey, Lou,” he said, getting up and going over to her. “Sorry about all the BT shit. You feeling better, now?”

She made a sound like “woo-oob-woo” and continued to gaze at him with her big, eerie eyes.

He poked the tank with a finger, making it rock gently, at which she giggled and did a full flip.

“So, about Higgs…” he said.

Her face scrunched fiercely and she balled up her hands into miniature fists, as if she meant to do physical violence to the full-grown and heavily-armed man on Sam’s behalf. “Pwaaa-bah!”

“Oh, yeah?” he laughed. “You gonna give him what-for?”

“Wa.”

“Wow, he better watch out.”

“Muuu-woo?”

“Because he needs help. That’s what we do. We help people.”

“Bweh.”

“Come on, Lou,” he chided. “What did we say about that kind of language.”

She yawned deeply and stretched her teeny arms, blinking sleepily up at him through the glass.

“Oh, now you’re tired,” he said, laughing again. “Well, get some rest. I have to go make a call.”

As the elevator from the subterranean safehouse ascended, all of Sam’s senses went on sudden alert. He was certain he’d heard something over the roar of the machinery. It almost sounded like…gunshots. He leaped off the platform and jogged across the black, sandy soil toward the shelter, rounded the corner to the entry and stopped short, raising his hands reflexively.

The first thing he’d seen was the gun, then Fragile, standing there in her black jacket and glossy, black rubber leggings. He glanced over and quickly took in the rest of the scene. Brilliant crimson spattered across the grey steel walls. Higgs, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Two bullet holes in his forehead.

Fragile turned her head slowly and looked at Sam without really seeming to see him. Her lips were white and her face was pale and stricken. She was still holding the gun, but the hand that held it hung dead at her side, as if she was unaware she had it.

“Sam?” she asked, in a dazed voice.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said cautiously. “Are you ok?”

A tear rolled down her white cheek. “I never…I never killed anyone before.”

Sam remained silent, watching her movements keenly, every muscle tensed and ready. Not out of fear for his personal safety. He’d been shot dozens of times and wasn’t afraid of firearms in the least. At the present moment, he was afraid she’d hurt someone else. Someone who wouldn’t mend so easily.

She craned her neck as if struggling to catch her breath. “I think…I’m gonna be sick.”

He rushed forward and supported her as she doubled over, dry-heaving into the black gravel. While she was thus occupied, he took the gun from her hand and tossed it away. She didn’t appear to notice. When she had worn herself out, he sat down on the ground, taking her small, slight body in his arms.

“I thought it would make me feel better,” she said haltingly. “It only made it worse. He laughed when he saw the gun. He said to give him my best shot. I didn’t think he’d really let me do it.”

“It’s ok,” Sam said, as gently as he could. “You haven’t done anything anyone could blame you for.”

“He stole years of my life and he’s going to live forever. He’ll mock me with it. Ask me how long—how long I have left.”

“If he does that I’ll shoot him myself,” Sam muttered, glancing over at Higgs’ body.

“I don’t want to be here when he comes back,” she said, becoming suddenly agitated. “I have to go. Goodbye, Sam.”

“Fragile, wait—”

She was already gone, leaving a shimmer of black particles and the hiss of the air rushing in to fill the sudden vacuum. Sam sighed and staggered to his feet, exhausted down to his very bones by the labors and events of the day. He wondered irritably if anyone else on earth had to put up with so much acrid ill-will between the people they loved.

Just as he was thinking this, Higgs’ body rose and floated supine, three feet off the ground. After a moment, it seized violently, spine arching and arms outstretched, then fell back onto the steel floor with a heavy thud.

Higgs drew a deep, gasping breath, like a man who had been drowning and suddenly surfaced, then said, “Ow.”

Sam strode in and stood over him, holding out a hand. “How was the Seam?”

“Blurry.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I guess I was wrong,” he said, as Sam pulled him to his feet. “She did have the grit to kill a man.”

“Yeah, well, he might have deserved it.”

“I admit, I did have it coming,” he conceded. “Where is she? Waiting around to shoot me again?”

“Took off. She didn’t want to be here when you came to.”

“Wise.”

“Why’d you let her do it?”

“Thought I’d let her get it out of her system. Seemed like less trouble than standing here listening to her talk about what a monster I am.”

“You didn’t have to listen to her talk, either,” Sam pointed out. “You could just…you know. Poof away.”

“What, and be rude?” Higgs clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “It’s very impolite to poof away when a lady comes to call.”

“I think you provoked her into shooting you on purpose.”

“Do you.”

“Yes. You knew she’d come eventually, and you knew what you were going to do.”

Higgs gave a derisive snort. “I hate to disappoint you, Sam, but I don’t think shit through that way. I act on impulse. Instinct.”

Sam moved as if to turn away, then swung round suddenly, aiming a heavy, lightning quick blow at Higgs’ face. Higgs flickered back a few inches and it passed harmlessly through the empty space he had just occupied.

“Well, what have we here,” he said, with a savage grin. “You lookin’ for a fight?”

“No, I’m proving a point,” Sam replied flatly. “That was you acting on impulse. You avoided being hit without thinking because that’s how the survival instinct works. It takes willpower to stand in front of a bullet, when even your own reflexes will try to save you.”

Higgs smiled imperturbably. “This has been very amusing, Sammy boy, but all you have proved is that I’m faster than you.”

“Ok,” Sam nodded. “So, you didn’t decide to let her shoot you because you regret what you did to her, and it was the only way you could think of to give her some relief for her anger and pain.”

“Oh, my dear, sweet Sam,” Higgs said, with a cold, venomous laugh. “How wrong you are about me. Do you really believe I regret anything? Do you think I’m torn apart by guilt and want to spend eternity making amends? You’ve been watching too many of those superhero movies. I’m not sorry for a single thing I’ve done, and if I had the chance, I’d do it all again.”

“Why do you live within sight of the K-5 craters?”

“I’m an artist,” Higgs said, lifting his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I can’t help wanting to admire my own work.”

Sam gazed at him steadily for a moment, then turned away, shaking his head. “Fine. I guess I was wrong.”

“You were.”

“You’re a monster and you always will be.”

“Thank you.”

Sam looked wearily about at the crimson droplets spattered all over the walls and the sticky puddle on the floor.

“We better wash out the blood tonight,” he said. “If it dries it’ll be a bitch to get out of here.”

Higgs showed him where towels and buckets were kept, and the two went to work soaking up what they could of the blood, and washing away the rest with water from one of the large tanks beside the shelter. Sam laughed at Higgs’ insistence that they use a disinfectant as well, but he did as he was told. The task satisfactorily completed, they rinsed and dried the buckets, then Sam watched as Higgs stuffed the bloody towels into the garbage incinerator.

“Hey, what happened with that catcher?” he asked offhandedly.

“I told you,” Higgs said, pushing the heavy, insulated safety hatch shut with a bang. “I dealt with it.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me how.”

Higgs acted as though he hadn’t heard and headed back up the stairs, but Sam followed him, persisting.

“It’s just that I’ve never seen you face one that you didn’t summon before, and I was wondering how you did it.”

Higgs sighed patiently. “How do you normally deal with catchers, Sam?”

“So, you killed it.”

“Yes.”

“How? With blood, like I do?”

“No. My blood lacks the…interesting properties yours seems to have.”

“Then you cut its cord,” Sam said, looking at him closely.

Higgs gazed out over the larger crater, refusing to meet his eye. “In a manner of speaking. I released it from this world. Sent it home.”

“That’s amazing. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I couldn’t before. I can now.”

“I assumed you’d want to keep it around under your control. You get a lot of power from those things.”

“What do you want from me, Sam?” Higgs snarled, turning on him suddenly. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Sam actually took a step back, startled by the ferocity in his eye. “Doing…what?”

“Pushing me! You’re always fucking _pushing_ me! Every time I have a moment of peace, there you are, banging on my walls like a goddamn wrecking crew. Like you’re trying to—trying to tear me down.”

“I’m not trying to tear you down. I just want you to let me in.”

“Let you in?” Higgs half shouted. “I let you into my home. I laid all my secrets bare for your perusal. There ain’t a damn thing you don’t know about me. I even let the Bridges morons put me in a goddamned collar for you. How the fuck much more in can I let you than I already have?”

“You’re right,” Sam said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Higgs blinked. “You’re—I am? I mean, I am. And you should be. Apology accepted.”

Sam looked up at him and was unable to suppress a smile at how baffled he seemed to be by a simple apology. And at how hard he was failing at hiding his discomfiture.

“I’ve been pretty hard on you, haven’t I,” he said, in a milder tone.

“Yes, you have,” Higgs replied, despite not appearing to have any idea what he was talking about.

“I’m sorry about that, too. I know you’re new at this. I should’ve given you more time to adjust before I expected so much from you.”

“I’m new at what?”

Sam shrugged. “You know, this. All of it. Relationships are hard, even when you haven’t spent your life alone or as the herald of the apocalypse.”

“Relationships?” Higgs repeated slowly, looking more bewildered than ever.

“Yes, relationships. The state of being connected. You and I are connected to each other. Thus, relationship.”

Some of the color returned to Higgs’ deathly-pale face. “Ah…yes. I see what you mean.”

“It’s hard, right? I’m still learning to let people get close to me, and I’m way older than you and have a lot more experience.”

Higgs made a face. “Way older—how the fuck young do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, looking him up and down. “Like, twenty-five?”

“Christ on a fuckin’ Sunday picnic, I’m thirty-three years old, Sam. Thirty-three. Or…thirty-four? I don’t exactly know, but I’m thereabouts, so…you can take your twenty-five and shove it.”

“Got it, thirty-three,” Sam said drily. “Or thereabouts. Well, pardon me. I didn’t mean to offend your aged sensibilities.”

Higgs narrowed his eyes. “Oh, aged, am I? How old are you?”

“Fifty.”

“That’s real fuckin’ funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Come on, tell me. You know all about me, you owe me one.”

“I just told you.”

“I know, but for real.”

“I’m fifty years old, Higgs, I can’t tell you any more clearly than that.”

“Fine, keep your stupid secrets,” Higgs grumbled, crossing his arms querulously.

“You have cufflinks right there on your wrist,” Sam said. “Open the personnel interface and look at my file.”

Higgs threw another suspicious glance at him, then called up the hovering, blue holoscreen and poked at it for a few seconds.

“Sam Porter Bridges,” he read aloud. “Date of birth, November nine…holy shit, you’re fifty fucking years old.”

“You want a beer?” Sam said, walking away toward the safehouse.

Higgs dismissed the screen and hurried after him. “Hey, slow down grandpa, you might fall and break a hip.”

“God damn it.”

“You think we should install a wheelchair ramp on the shelter, just in case?”

“I immediately regret this.”

“And some safety bars in your shower,” Higgs continued, as they entered Sam’s private room. “Don’t want to slip and have to call for help.”

“I can’t even kill you to shut you up. You’ll just come right back and still be talking.”

“I always wanted to ask someone what ancient Egypt was really like. Did you ever meet Tutan—”

Higgs’ mouth was abruptly stopped by Sam, who took sudden hold of him and covered it with his own. His brain stopped, as well. Went entirely blank, as if it had shorted out. Firm lips pushed his apart. A tongue touched his, caressing it gently at first, then with more intensity. Strong arms pulled him closer. He felt his heart pounding in his ears and against Sam’s warm, solid chest. He couldn’t breathe. Then all at once, it was over.

Sam drew away and stepped back, looking up at him. Higgs had not yet returned to his senses, however, and stood frozen on the spot, staring blankly at the wall.

“Bwa-aaaa! Woo woobwoo!” Lou piped up from her tank, breaking the silence.

“I’m not sure,” Sam said to her. “I think I broke him.”

“Muu. Mu-mah,” she remarked.

“You’re right,” Sam grinned. “At least I figured out how to shut him up.”


	5. Patience

“I still can’t believe it,” Fragile said, gazing at the screen, as if reading the report over again could somehow change it. “Who could do a thing like this?”

“Somebody persistent, I guess,” her partner offered, in his languid, quasi-southern drawl.

“Persistent is an understatement. They took out six ships in three months. The whole Bridges fleet is gone.” She leaned on her elbows and cradled her forehead in her hands. “That means we now have the only vessel capable of transporting freight over large bodies of water in the entire UCA. I don’t know what we are going to do.”

He watched her keenly from the beneath the brim of his black Fragile Express cap, which he wore pulled down low over his eyes. Useful for concealing tar tears, among other things.

“Well, look on the bright side,” he said. “You’re always sayin’ how you want to expand operations back east.”

She looked up at him quickly, her pale-blue eyes sparking with anger. “This isn’t a joke, Higgs. People died. A lot of good people, just trying to do their jobs.”

“I apologize if I seemed to be makin’ light of it,” Higgs answered smoothly. “I know there were civilians on those ships and innocent lives were lost. But you and I are running a business. We’ve got no choice but to view the matter pragmatically.”

“I…I know. I know you’re right. But there’s no way we can handle that much freight. We just don’t have the manpower.”

“I think we can. Between you and me, we’ve got premium rush jobs covered. No one can fuck with us for speed or handling. If we leave ground traffic to my men, and put all your people in the Port Knot and Lake Knot harbors and on the ship, we won’t lose any ground business and we’ll be the only game in town for water.”

“You think you have enough men to cover all of our ground traffic in Central?”

“I know I do. Bridges handles most of its heavy freight internally now. My guys will have no problem pickin’ up the scraps.”

“I’m just not sure about this,” she said, shaking her head. “No one knows anything about these terrorists, except that they were able to breach Bridges security and get bombs onto their boats. What is to stop them doing the same to us?”

“Me,” he said. “I’ll put my best security men on those harbors. Not a single piece if cargo will touch your boat without going through us.”

“What about your own operations? Don’t you need your security men?”

“Truth is, when all this business with the terrorist attacks started, I got to thinkin’ about defending ourselves. I’ve been training my men to act as their own security. They’re gettin’ pretty good at it, too. Took out a couple of MULE camps last week, all on their own.”

“Holy shit,” she laughed. “That’s very impressive. But…I couldn’t ask you to send your people to work harbor security for me. It’s too much.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. And it’s nothin’ I’m not happy to do.”

She sat for a moment, hesitating, as if something still troubled her. He reached across the desk and laid his hand on hers, lifting his head so his eyes were visible beneath the brim of the cap.

“I told you when we made this deal that I’d protect you,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “Let me protect you.”

Color rose into her pale cheeks and she looked away, but she left her hand where it was. His much larger, stronger hand closed around it.

“If we made our partnership official, there wouldn’t have to be any talk about my people and your people. They’d all be ours. One big, happy family, all under the Fragile Express banner.”

“I can’t do that, Higgs.” She drew her hand away, but with obvious reluctance to do so. “You know I can’t. There are…a lot of reasons.”

For the briefest second, his bright-blue eyes seemed to glitter with something hard and cold, but he smiled, leaning back in his chair and obscuring them from view again.

“I respect your decision. I won’t worry you about it anymore,” he said, in an easy, affable manner, as if he were perfectly satisfied. “But I hope you won’t scruple about accepting my security men. What’s good for business is good for both of us. Keepin’ that ship safe is top-priority now.”

“Of course,” she said, seeming to come back to herself. “And thank you. For all of your help. Without you…I don’t think Fragile Express would still be around.”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s true,” he said, knowing with exact precision how true her statement had been, and how unaware she was of the depth of its truth. “I’m just happy to do my part. When do you think your people can be ready to start transitioning to the harbors? So I know what to tell my distro managers.”

“Oh, um…I think probably in a couple of weeks?”

“Why don’t we call it a full month,” he offered. “Give people time to adjust and make sure everything’s done right. Don’t want to rush these things, y’know?”

“Yes, absolutely. A month will be plenty of time. I’ll speak to my head of personnel this afternoon, and we will get the ball rolling.”

“Excellent,” he said, flashing a white-toothed smile and rising from his chair. “Let’s meet next week to go over the details. Take care, Fragile.”

“I will,” she replied, returning the smile as she stood to see him out. “Take care of yourself, too, Higgs. I mean it.”

The moment the door shut behind him, the troubled expression returned to her lovely face, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself, as if she felt a sudden chill.

Higgs walked down the stairs and through the warehouse, then out to the shipyard, where a glossy, black Fragile Express truck was waiting, parked beside the towering stacks of freight containers.

The man in the driver’s seat wore the same Fragile Express cap as his passenger, but his uniform was markedly different. Heavier and more suited to combat than cargo delivery, and bearing a strange logo comprised of black and gold stripes forming the shape of an Egyptian headdress, with a star in the center, where the face would be. He started the engine as Higgs climbed in, and they drove off without exchanging a word.

When they were a kilometer or so outside the city, the air seemed to warp and shimmer around Higgs. His Fragile Express jumpsuit transformed into a uniform similar to one the driver wore, and his cap was replaced by a black hood and VOG mask, over which a gleaming, gold mask like the lower half of skull materialized.

The driver glanced at him. “How’d it go, boss?”

“She doesn’t trust me,” Higgs said, his already sonorous voice amplified and made resonant by the mask.

“But I thought she was…you know. Sweet on you.”

“She is. That’s why we’re getting exactly what we want anyway.”

The man frowned. “I don’t understand, boss.”

“She doesn’t trust me, but she knows she’s letting her feelings cloud her judgment, so she doesn’t trust herself, either. She thinks she’s treating me badly. By way of making it up to me, she’s doing everything I asked.”

“I still don’t get it, boss. She thinks you’re sweet on her, too?”

“She does. I made sure of it.”

“And that…makes her want to do what you say.”

“Women are strange creatures, Flaherty. Don’t try too hard to understand ‘em, if you can help it. That way lies madness.”

“I won’t,” Flaherty said decidedly. “The only woman I ever knew that well was my mother, and she was as crazy as a shithouse rat.”

At a bend in the road, he pulled off and drove a little way into the rocky hills, where some massive boulders stood. Behind one of these, two men in Fragile Express jumpsuits were sitting in an unmarked, black and tan defensive truck.

Higgs and Flaherty exchanged vehicles with the waiting men, who continued south down the highway with the Fragile Express truck. The truck bearing Higgs cut west across the rolling, grassy terrain, toward the foothills of the mountains.

“You forget somethin’?” Higgs said, after they had ridden in silence for another ten minutes or so.

Flaherty looked perplexed. “Forget something, boss?”

Higgs looked at him and waited.

“Oh—shit,” he said, hastily removing the Fragile Express cap. “Sorry, boss. I forgot I was still wearing it.”

“Probably hard to tell what you’ve got on your head, with a skull that thick. Don’t let it happen again.”

“I won’t, boss, I swear.”

“I’d like to believe you, but I must confess I have my doubts.”

Flaherty was nearly trembling with fear now, gripping the wheel tightly to steady himself. “I’m so sorry, boss. I’ll try my best, I swear. Please…don’t kill me.”

“Kill you—fuck’s sake Flaherty it’s a hat!” Higgs said, annoyed out of his composure. “Failure to change your hat is not a capital fuckin’ offense! Just try not to do it again, ok?”

“Yes, sir. I will, boss. Thank you, boss.”

“Holy mother of Christ. If you weren’t one of the best drivers we have, I’d feed you to the BTs just for tryin’ my nerves with your stupidity.”

“I’m sorry, boss. I know I’m dumb, but it’s not my fault,” Flaherty pleaded. “I can’t help how the lord made me.”

“I know you can’t, and I don’t blame you for it. Now, no more talking. With the last ship in the UCA in our hands, we now control the land and the sea. I have a lot to think over.”

“That is pretty cool, boss.”

“It’s how empires are built, my boy. And how they fall.”

“Hey, what happened between you and Fragile?”

Sam was lying on his back on the soft grass atop a high, broad plateau, gazing up at the hazy afternoon sky. The question was addressed to Higgs, who was leaning on a large, timefall-pitted boulder a few feet away, looking at nothing in particular.

Higgs cocked his head, making the sunlight glint off his gold mask. “Are we playin’ a game where we ask questions we already know the answers to?”

“No. I heard her side and I wanted to hear yours.”

“I see. So, we’re playin’ a game where we pretend that thing didn’t happen, and Sam gets to ask all the personal questions he wants without explaining himself first.”

“What thing?” Sam asked, craning his head backward to look at him upside-down.

Higgs pushed himself off from the boulder, standing to his full height. “The thing where you put your mouth. On my mouth. That thing!”

“When I kissed you? Like a week ago?”

“Yes, Sam. When you…did that. And then let six days pass without bothering to explain yourself.”

Sam turned over onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. “Explain myself how?”

“A person does not do a thing like that without a reason. A reason which should, from common courtesy, be made clear to the object of the action.”

“You’re asking why I kissed you?” Sam smirked. “Ok, so _now_ we’re playing a game where we ask questions we know the answers to.”

Higgs stood staring down at him from behind his skull mask, clenching and unclenching his fists. It occurred to Sam that he was genuinely agitated about the kiss, but he had never been called upon to explain something like this to anyone, and he had no clue how to go about it.

His ears felt hot and he shifted uncomfortably. “Come on, Higgs, you know how that stuff works. Why do people usually kiss each other?”

“I have no idea!” Higgs said, throwing his arms out in a gesture of exasperation. “I understand, in theory, that the purpose of…kissing is to prepare the body for the act of sexual reproduction, but since you and I are both male, and thus incapable of making copies of our DNA in that way, there doesn’t seem to be any biological imperative attached to it at all!”

Sam had to stifle a laugh at this. “Well, I definitely wasn’t trying to get you pregnant, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Higgs crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently.

“Sorry. Look, there doesn’t have to be a biological reason for everything. I kissed you because I really wanted to. That’s all. And I thought you wanted to kiss me, too.”

“But why would I—why would you…want to do that?”

“Because it feels good? Being touched and kissed by someone you—someone you want to be close to feels…good.”

“I have never wanted to be close to anyone,” Higgs said, tossing his head scornfully.

Then he paused, feeling an odd sense of having told an untruth. But he wasn’t sure why. Of course it was true. He’d never given a god damn about anyone in his life. There was not a single human being who he would have—fuck. His masks suddenly seemed to be suffocating him, so he pulled them off and threw them on the ground, passing a hand over his brow.

“Listen, I’m really sorry,” Sam said, misunderstanding entirely. “I won’t kiss you anymore if you don’t want me to.”

“Hm? What?” Higgs asked, suddenly aware he was being spoken to.

“I said I won’t kiss you anymore.”

Higgs frowned. “I can’t help but feel I missed something, here. How did we arrive at that?”

“It clearly upset you a lot,” Sam said, as he got up from the ground and dusted off his jumpsuit. “I won’t do it again. I just want to be close to you. That’s enough for me.”

“You want to…be close…to me…” Higgs repeated, as if trying to comprehend the meaning of the words by sounding them out slowly.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I more than want to, I feel like I need to. Like…I might die if I’m away from you. We’re connected like I’ve never been to anyone. You don’t feel that, too? Like, right here?”

He spread out his hand on the center of his chest. Higgs mirrored the gesture unconsciously, gazing away into the middle-distance with a deep furrow in his brow.

“It hurts,” he whispered, more to himself than to Sam.

“It doesn’t hurt so much when we’re together, though,” Sam shrugged.

Higgs didn’t respond. He was absolutely blindsided by the revelation that Sam felt their connection the way he did. He had been sure the thread was broken, and that it was impossible for Sam to—but a connection can’t be broken only on one end. Eventually, the other side dies off, too. And he’d described the feeling so exactly.

Sam’s kissing him must’ve been an expression of that feeling. A clumsy, physical expression, if not an entirely unpleasant one. So, to follow the matter to its logical conclusion, a kiss must be a way of saying ‘I want to be close to you so badly, that it hurts to be separated from you, even by a few feet’ but without words. Now that he examined it, the words were actually a great deal clumsier and less expressive than the kiss.

Thus, his mind was made up. He closed the distance between himself and Sam in two strides and pulled him into a reckless, urgent kiss. It was only the second time he’d done this in his life, but instinct supplied his deficit in practice.

He worked his fingers into Sam’s shaggy hair, breathed his scent, tasted his mouth, felt his heartbeat—flung wide the gates and let every attending sensation wash over him. As a result, his head spun and he lost his balance, but Sam’s powerful arms were wrapped around him, supporting him and making sure he didn’t fall.

“I want to—be close—to you, too,” he panted, when Sam drew back to catch his breath.

Sam laughed and touched his face with that big, calloused hand. “Yeah, I kinda got that impression.”

“And I don’t want you to not kiss me anymore.”

“I got that, too. I’m on fire today.”

“But I still don’t understand most of this. You have to be patient with me.”

“Oh, trust me. I know.”

“Good. That’s all I need, for now. Patience.”

“Got it. Patience. And kisses.”

“Well, they do help things along, don’t they.”

“Yep. And it’s pretty much the only way to shut you up.”

“I don’t know why you’d want to shut me up. I am very charming.”

“Oh, you are, are you?”

“And eloquent.”

“Is eloquent a fancy word for talks pretty much nonstop?”

“Yes it is.”

“So…are you gonna tell me what happened with you and Fragile?”

“Ah, that,” Higgs said, rubbing his gloved hands together. “That _will_ require some patience. It’s not exactly a short story. And I’m afraid I do come off as quite the villain of the piece.”

“Imagine that.”

“You’re…really gonna make me tell you? I mean, we could always just kiss some more.”

Sam shook his head and pointed to the springy grass. “Nope. Sit. Talk.”

“Fine. But I’m doing this under protest.”

“Protest noted. Get talking.”


	6. Bones

Higgs summoned those of his men who needed to know and briefed them on current developments, then retreated to get some much-needed peace and goddamned quiet. He had a lot to think about and he needed to be alone to do it. The two men on watch saluted as he strode past, but no one wondered why he was leaving so soon or where he was going. He would appear when he had a mission in hand or orders to give, but otherwise, he spent as little time in the Demens camps as possible.

He told himself he preferred to be alone at all times, but the truth was that he thoroughly detested other men, with their noisy, dirty habits and boisterous methods of socializing. Not that any of them would dare to try socializing with him. The barrier of mingled awe and fear stood high and impassable between himself and any unwelcome familiarity from his disciples.

His personal magnetism and reputation for ruthlessness attracted men to his ranks and the power he wielded due to his exceptionally high-level DOOMs accomplished the rest. He was a charismatic authority. A cult of personality. A leader of men. And all of this by the age of thirty.

Now, with the position in which he had placed Fragile Express and his imminent control of their delivery operations, he was poised to accomplish more than he’d ever believed possible. The world would know his name before the end.

He strolled through the wooded vale that skirted the camp, where darkness hung heavy beneath the boughs of the towering trees. The night air was cold and clear, but for the chiral clouds that veiled the upper atmosphere, like a shroud laid over the face of the dead.

He’d learned about stars. Seen photographs and film of the night sky before the Stranding, when it was a high, black dome pierced by tens of thousands of tiny points of light. But the earth had been entombed by the universe. Its lifeless and unseeing eyes were shut, never again to be uncovered. Never again to gaze boldly into that beautiful oblivion, and dare to number the stars.

He was wrapped in these meditations when his keen ears detected a rustle of movement unnatural to the forest. A footstep, to be sure. He scanned the gloom about him, and twenty meters or so away, he discerned a flash of white between the trees. Some foolhardy Bridges porter must have undertaken to forge a route across his territory. His poor judgement would cost him dearly. The lion was hungry tonight.

As sure and silent as a hunting cat, he stalked through the trees, lifting his head and breathing deeply every once in while, attempting to catch the scent of blood. In a little clearing, where the ground began to slope upward toward the mountains, he came upon his quarry at last. But it wasn’t porter, at all. He paused in the shadows and stood observing this strange animal with a predator’s languid curiosity.

It was a girl. A young woman, rather. A pale, thin little thing in a simple white dress, standing beside the bole of a fallen tree. Her back was to him, and she didn’t appear to be very wary of her surroundings. He pulled off his masks and stowed them, so as not to frighten her out of her wits sooner than he intended to, then stepped out into the clearing.

“Evening, ma’am,” he called out, in his smooth, sonorous drawl.

The girl wheeled round to face him, but she didn’t appear to be afraid of him in the least. She returned his salutation and waited serenely as he approached the spot where she stood. He stepped close and looked down at her from the shadow beneath his black hood, letting her feel the difference in their respective heights and sizes.

“You picked a bad place to get lost, darlin’,” he smiled. “Folks say there’s dangerous men around here.”

“I’m not lost,” she replied, not returning the smile. “I’m looking for a dangerous man.”

Higgs laughed aloud. Bold as brass and proud as a thoroughbred. Still, stupid enough to go walking alone at night in Demens country. What a fascinating creature he’d found.

“That a fact,” he said, in a bantering tone. “Any dangerous man in particular, or you just takin’ what you can get.”

Then she did smile. A studied motion of the lips that didn’t seem to touch her eyes, but gave some softness to her fine, well-bred features.

“I’m looking for you.”

“Are you, now. Well, I won’t say I’m not flattered. To what do I owe the honor?”

He took care to outwardly maintain his easy demeanor, but he was instantly on his guard. Maybe she wasn’t as stupid as he’d thought. Or as alone.

She looked thoughtful, as though actually considering the answer. “The chances of your life and a series of genetic accidents.”

“I find that less flattering, but I don’t take offense,” he said, with another laugh. “Particularly since I don’t believe you have the faintest clue who I am.”

“I know who you are.”

“Do you.” There was some menace in his tone, now, but if she were aware of it, she made no sign.

“I do,” she said, still observing him with that unnerving, placid smile. “I know everything about you.”

“That’s quite a claim. How ‘bout this. Why don’t you tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you if you missed anything.”

“Higgs Monaghan,” she said. “Former independent contractor and current Fragile Express porter, among…other things. Orphaned, no living relations. Hyperintelligent, strong antisocial and psychopathic tendencies, and DOOMs numbers that are off the charts.”

“I’d wager it’s those other things that brought you here. So, is it Bridges or the UCA that sent you after me? Though, to be perfectly honest, it don’t much matter which. Either way, you wind up a smoking crater.”

“No, you have it all wrong,” she said, shaking her head so that the moonlight shimmered in her hair. “I’m not here on anyone else’s behalf. I’m here because I need your help.”

“Oh, sweetheart…you have no idea what you’re askin’ for,” he said softly, as he drew a curved, gold-bladed knife from his belt. “The only help you’re gonna get from me is about a minute head start. It’s more interesting if you run, anyway.”

“Why would I run from you?” she asked, laying a hand on the arm that held the knife. “I’ve been searching for you for years.”

He tried to flicker away from the touch, but found himself unable to access his power. He couldn’t move his body, either, or even take his eyes off her. The knife fell from his hand, with a soft thud as it hit the mossy ground.

“The fuck you mean searchin’ for me,” he demanded, more hoarsely than he’d have wished. “I haven’t been hidin’ anywhere.”

“No, but I didn’t know it was you I was searching for. Not until bombs started destroying all those ships. Then I saw you. You use your power to sow chaos, because you enjoy it. You kill without remorse, and your power grows with each death. You are…perfect.”

Higgs was too dumbstruck to even bother taking umbrage at this description of himself. “You—how can you know all that?”

“I told you, I’ve been searching for you for years. And now, when I need you most, here you are. Forged by nature and circumstance to be everything I need. You have no idea how important you are to me.”

He found suddenly that he had regained control of his limbs, and immediately clamped a black-gloved hand around her neck, pressing the knife to it with the other.

“I’ve heard enough of this shit,” he growled. “I don’t care who the fuck you are or who sent you. I’m gonna cut your throat and bathe in your blood.”

“I can’t explain it to you this way,” she said, taking no notice of the threat, nor the knife. “Not so you’ll understand it. I have to show you.”

She reached up with both hands as if to touch his face. He saw with a sickening jolt that her graceful, white fingers seemed to be coming apart at the tips, like fraying ropes. Splitting into thousands of thin, black threads, all alive and writhing like a mass of vipers.

He stood petrified as the strands snaked out and coiled about his head and neck, crawling through his hair and seeping into his skin. His eyes went as black as pools of ink as thick, tar tears oozed down his cheeks, and he fell on his knees before her, mouth open in a mute cry.

When he came to his senses some length of time later—be it seconds or years, he had no way of knowing—he was lying on his stomach on a carpet of dead pine needles. The girl was gone and he was alone. Or rather, she wasn’t physically there anymore. He’d soon learn that there was no more ‘alone’ for him. He would never be free of that voice again. Not until…

He picked himself up and dusted off his black uniform, collected his knife, then replaced his masks. He had to go right back to the Demens camp and amend all the orders he’d just given. Things had changed quite a bit since he embarked on this little stroll. His mind lurched and raced wildly from idea to idea as he walked, pushed beyond its capacity in attempting to process the extreme volume of data with which it must now supply its calculations.

_You see it, now. All of it. With my eyes._

He stopped dead in his tracks. The voice wasn’t audible in his ears, but sounded through the fullness of his being, as if every cell in his body and molecule of matter in the universe resonated with it. The voice of a god.

_God is change and death his prophet. You are my prophet. My right hand and protector. The herald of the apocalypse._

He liked the sound of that right hand and herald of the apocalypse business, but he couldn’t imagine what a god would need with a protector.

_You must see the extinction fulfilled. You are the only one who will be able to stop him._

Him? Who, him?

_A man. A repatriate. A bridge between this world and the next. His power is life, as yours is death._

Fortunate for me. Death is the stronger, by far.

_Don’t underestimate him. He may surprise you._

We’ll see about that.

_You have seen the fabric of the two worlds. I have shown you the warp and weft of my design. Use the power I’ve given you to ensure that the web is completed._

When all this is done, and we’ve brought about the extinction…

_We will stand together until the end. Then we will end. We will…rest._

Timefall fell in torrents from dark, rolling clouds. Lightning split the sky and cracks of thunder shook the high, reinforced blast-walls. The worst storm the city had seen in years, people were saying. The worst many had seen in their lives.

Fragile stood beneath the distribution center’s long, elliptical overhang, gazing out into the grey haze of heavy rain. If only this shit would stop pouring down, they could carry the damned containers the rest of the way from the harbor.

But even a matter of a hundred meters or so would be foolish to traverse in this weather. A risk she would not allow her people to undertake, despite their assurances that every safety precaution would be observed and that there would be no danger to themselves nor the cargo.

She gave a start when Higgs suddenly materialized beside her, with the customary shudder of flame and rush of displaced atmosphere.

“Hi, Higgs,” she said, smiling cheerfully despite her mood. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Well, you know what they say about bad pennies,” he replied offhandedly. “It’s really comin’ down. Must be why that freight’s been sittin’ on the dock for two hours.”

“I haven’t seen it rain here like this since I was a child. Of course it would happen today, when we are carrying over a hundred urgent deliveries from Eastern.”

“Standing here starin’ at it won’t hurry it along any. Why don’t we go and have a drink while you wait. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Oh…I would love to, but I’m overseeing this delivery personally. Until it’s done, I’m on the clock. You know how it goes.”

“If I could stop the rain for you, I would,” he said, smiling down at her. At that instant, the downpour dwindled to a trickle and ceased altogether. He laughed, as though surprised. “Well, would you look at that. I guess I can.”

Fragile couldn’t even pretend to laugh along with him.

“How did you do that, Higgs,” she demanded, in a strained half-whisper.

“That was just good timing, darlin’. You don’t really think I can control the weather, do you?”

He laughed again as he said this, but there was something sharp and taunting beneath his assumed jocularity that chilled her to the bone.

“No, of course not,” she said, attempting to calm her racing pulse. “But I can’t tell sometimes when you are joking, and your DOOMs seems to be getting stronger lately.”

“Funny you should mention that. Why don’t we go and check on your freight, then we can have that talk.”

Before she could reply, he had taken her firmly by the arm and was leading her across the concrete lot toward the dock. On the way down the stairwell tunnel, they passed six of her porters on their way up, dragging heavily-laden floating carriers behind them. Directly following the first group were four more, burdened in the same way. The ship’s supercargo was bringing up the rear and hailed her as they met.

“This is the last of it, ma’am,” he said. “Looks like we’ll be making our delivery time, after all.”

“Looks like it,” she said, forcing a smile. “Good work, Ramesh.”

Every instinct in her body screamed at her to grab the man and hold onto him for dear life. To do anything but walk down into the docking bay with Higgs. But she was paralyzed. Stricken dumb and unable to exert any will of her own. He led and she followed meekly, like the lamb to the slaughter.

The freight area was deserted, but for two of his security men, who Higgs dismissed with an order to go up and get some fresh air. Then he released her arm and leaned on the rail with both hands, staring down into the black water that sloshed about and lapped the boat’s hull. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and watched him, with that same troubled expression on her pale face.

“What is going on, Higgs?” she prompted, after a moment or two passed in silence. “Is something the matter?”

“I’m afraid I have to broach this subject again,” he said, still looking down into the water. “I know I told you I wouldn’t worry you about it anymore, but I can’t let it go without—” He stopped short. He’d almost said ‘giving you one last chance.’ That would have been more truthful, but far less likely to put her in a receptive frame of mind.“—without tryin’ one last time. It means too much to me. You mean too much to me.”

“Do I, Higgs?” she asked, her initial trepidation fading as her indignation flared up. “Is it really me you care about? Or is it all of this. This empire you are trying to build, with me as the foundation.”

He shook his head slowly, still not meeting her eye. “It ain’t like that. It wouldn’t matter to me if you had nothing in the world but the clothes on your back. I’d still—”

“You’d still what?” she demanded, with growing heat. “You’d still what!”

His black-lined eyes flickered over her face, then away again.

“You see? You can’t even say it. Even you can’t make yourself tell a lie like that out loud. You don’t love me, Higgs. And I don’t…I don’t love you.”

As she pronounced the words, she was almost sure they were true. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t. There had been a time when she’d almost believed that he was really in love with her, and almost convinced herself she could love him in return, but something always checked her. Some warning in her heart, bidding her be wary of this man’s pleasing words and seeming kindnesses.

He had always acted as he’d spoken and had never broken a promise to her, and yet there was something….a note that rang just a little false in his every word and deed, as if he were always wearing a mask with her. When he had spoken plainly of his regard for her, however earnest his words appeared to be, they had still not carried that ring of real, sterling truth. There was a hollowness that made them seem to be only recitations of words he had arranged to please her, rather than the natural overflowing of a full heart.

“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I don’t mean to be cruel. I care about you and I am grateful for all you’ve done. But sometimes I feel like…I still don’t really know you.”

“Ah, but do you really want to know me? That’s the question.”

“Of course I do. Of course I want to know you. How can you ask me that?”

He turned his large, bright-blue eyes on her and looked her full in the face.

For a heartbeat, the space of a breath, the mask fell away. The veil was rent asunder and the inner sanctum exposed. She saw for the first time, the unfathomable well of darkness inside this man. The child’s terror and pain and isolation, that had metastasized into a man’s hatred and rage. The cold, calculating cruelty of which he was capable, and the fiery, relentless wrath. And interwoven with all of this, something resembling real, unaffected love for herself.

Among all the black things concealed behind his mask, this was the most abhorrent to her. His desire for her was sincere enough, but it had been born twisted and monstrous in his mutilated heart. A brutal, possessive longing that would crush her in its fist as it clung to her. She recoiled in horror, even as she pitied him his suffering.

Then, as quickly as it had been thrown open, the veil was drawn back. The mask returned and his features settled into their customary self-possessed tranquility.

“I guess there’s nothin’ more to be gained by rehashing the subject,” he said, with a coldly courteous bow. “Thank you for bein’ so candid.”

“Higgs, wait.” She reached out to take hold of his arm, but his body flickered and her hand closed on nothing.

“You don’t get to touch me, sweetheart,” he snarled, with sudden ferocity. “Not anymore.”

She stepped back stunned, as if he’d struck her, unable to stop the tears spilling down her milk-white cheeks.

His lips curled in a sneering smile. “Y’know, I really thought you were somethin’ special. Turns out you’re no different from the rest of ‘em. You can’t stand to look behind my mask, but underneath that pretty face of yours, you’re just another dead thing waiting to be buried. You’re nothin’ but bones.”

She turned as if to make for the exit door, but quick as lightning, he had her by her wrist and the back of her neck, twisting her arm behind her.

“Higgs—please!” she gasped. “You’re hurting me!”

He ignored the entreaty and pulled her close, holding her fast in his iron grasp.

“You have no idea what’s coming,” he whispered, pressing his mouth to her ear, so she felt his hot breath on her skin. “I would have protected you. Remember that. I would have done anything for you.”

With that, he released her abruptly and vanished in a shuddering flash of fire.

He reappeared miles away, at home. The closest thing to a home he had, at least. The generous bequest of one Mr. Peter Englert, who had been kind enough to die elsewhere and leave his shelter unattended and well-supplied. If there was anything resembling an actual legal system anymore, Higgs would be the owner of the property by squatters’ rights at this point. He’d been living in the place on and off since he was a teenager. Hacking a UCA ID was child’s play, though, and a cover identity was never a bad thing to keep lying around.

He dismissed his jumpsuit and cap with a wave of his hand and fell onto his cot, stomach turning and head throbbing. What the fuck was wrong with him, anyhow? He wasn’t hungry or thirsty or sick—he’d never been sick in his life and wasn’t even sure he could be—so why did he feel like a fucking bag of dogshit? Was it the chiral allergy?

_You did well._

“Oh, it’s you again,” he answered aloud. “How’ve you been? Busy, I imagine.”

_You were right to sever your connection with that woman. Every link you have with that world interferes with your connection to me. _

“My connection with…oh. Well, we’re still business partners, so I don’t know how severed it is.”

_You don’t need her help anymore. You have me._

“No, but I do need her daddy’s company for a few things I’ve got on the—”

_I want your undivided loyalty, Higgs._

“You have it. You know you have it.”

_Show me._

“How?”

_I want a gift from you. Something to demonstrate your…devotion._

“Anything. I’ll give you anything you want, just name it.”

_That wouldn’t be a gift, it would be a supply order. I want you to think of something on your own. Something special. Surprise me._

“Alright, then. I’ll do my best.”

_I know you will. I have to go. I’ll be thinking of you._

As soon as the voice was silent, Higgs set his mind to work, and within minutes he had the foundation of a plan. Within an hour it was fully laid out, with every detail in perfect order. Something very special, indeed. An offering to his god, a demonstration of his loyalty, and something that would certainly surprise her, all in one neat little package. And only one courier in the world to whom he’d entrust it. After all, it would be fragile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO, I'M NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT SORRY FOR THE PUN


	7. Breathe In

He found her seated on a flat boulder this time, high up on the mountainside, clad only in her thin, silk dress, snow white against a snow-swept landscape. Serene and regal as a queen.

“A pillar of cloud by day.”

“And a pillar of fire by night. You ever think the Israelites were just chasin’ a volcano?”

“It’s beautiful.” She turned her head and looked up at him, her eyes shining as if with tears. “Thank you.”

He gave a rather grandiloquent bow. “I live to serve.”

“Come here. Sit with me for a while.”

He stepped to her side, casting off his masks, and sank to his knees before her. She leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, then he lowered his head into her lap with a sigh. She stroked his hair with her ice-cold fingertips, humming some little snippet of a tune as she gazed out over the devastation far below. Two massive craters, spewing gouts of fire and vomiting inky, black smoke that rose to swallow the dome of the sky, blotting out the chiral clouds and dimming the light of midday.

“What did she do,” she asked, after a long moment, “when she realized?”

“She jumped. Left the bomb in the city and saved her own skin. Just like I knew she would.”

This elicited a low, melodious laugh from the goddess.

“Pride goeth before destruction,” he muttered. “And a haughty spirit before a fall.”

“She was proud, wasn’t she,” she said, letting an edge of mocking pity creep into her voice. “She looked down her little nose at you, and you wanted to punish her for it.”

“I did it for you!” he growled, attempting to pull away.

She held his head down, keeping it firmly in place on her knee. Fury blazed up hot within him, but he knew that to struggle with her would be futile. So he submerged his resentment and submitted, like a whipped cur.

“All of this was for you,” he resumed, in a subdued tone. “A gift. To show you my devotion.”

“And I am so pleased with you,” she said sweetly. “You have to forgive me a little jealousy, now and then. I just want to know I have you all to myself. That there are no…lingering connections.”

“There are none, I swear. That girl is nothin’ to me. You want her dead, you say the word.”

“She’ll die, one way or another,” she replied carelessly, as she traced a fingertip along the line of his cheekbone. “They all do. What does it matter if it’s now or years from now.”

“I’ll let her keep breathin’ for a while, then,” he said, letting his eyes drift closed under her freezing caresses. “I want to give her time to think about what she’s done. I want her to know she’s all alone.”

Her infernal magnificence was less pleased with him the next time he saw her. She was agitated. Impatient and querulous, as if something had gone wrong and she hadn’t anticipated it. He stood silent as she rebuked him bitterly for exposing his terrorist activities to Fragile and allowing her to live, then for his attempt to destroy South Knot in the first place.

He didn’t dare to point out that the city still stood _because_ he’d allowed the girl to live, nor that the short, miserable life to which he’d condemned her couldn’t be called anything like mercy on his part. His god was an intemperate and volatile deity, and she may have taken it in a bad humor.

“There’s something on your mind,” she said sharply. “What is it?”

“A question,” he said, tilting his head languidly to one side. “Who’s the girl in red?”

She looked even more displeased. “How do you know about her?”

“I had a dream or…vision, or whatever you want to call it. I was on a Beach and she was there, looking out over the ocean.”

“Is that all? Nothing else happened?”

“That’s all I remember,” he shrugged.

She shook her head irritably. “I’d like to know what the fuck her game is, showing herself to you now. But none of that will matter soon. Have you been able to see Sam Bridges yet?”

“Can’t seem get a good connection. I don’t know how, but he’s keepin’ himself well out of my sight.”

“He’s like that. Hard to find when he doesn’t want to be found, even for us. Keep trying. He will come, and when he does, you have to be ready.”

Higgs replied with a dip of his chin.

“I won’t be able to meet you like this again for a while. I have so much to do, before…” She seemed to soften, suddenly, and stepped close to him, taking his hands in hers. He felt their icy chill, even through his gloves. “You need more power. I’m going to give you as much as I can. Just keep working to bring about the extinction, no matter what. Our design must be accomplished. You’re my right hand, Higgs. My prophet. I can’t do it without you.”

He lifted her cold, white hands and pressed them to his lips, then vanished in a shudder of flame.

His eyes blinked open heavily and by slow degrees, as though they were full of sand. His body was cold. Numb and paralyzed. He was lying on a Beach, surrounded by the hulking, black carcasses of whales and other sea creatures. All dead. All stranded.

The steady, rolling thunder of the breakers filled his ears. The slap and hiss as waves kissed the shore and dispersed into foam. And over all, the acrid, ever-present reek of decay, permeating the very atmosphere, so that not even the icy wind blowing in from the ocean was clean.

He felt a presence. Heard the soft crush of a footstep in the sand. A girl, all gold and blue and brilliant crimson, against the lifeless grey. She knelt beside him, leaning over to look into his face.

“You…I saw you…before,” he rasped, struggling to form even those few words.

The girl put a finger to her lips. In the dead, grey sky above them, five figures hung suspended like black stars. Silent and eternal.

Without a word, she reached down and tore open the heavy, protective fabric of his uniform top as if it were tissue paper. He shuddered as she laid her hands on his bare chest.

“You’re warm,” he murmured. “Do I know you? You look…so familiar.”

She ignored the question, frowning down at the exposed section of his torso, intently focused on whatever she was doing. A look of recognition passed over her face.

“There it is,” she whispered. Then she shook her head, closing her eyes as if in some great trouble of spirit. “It’s so deep. It could kill him.”

“What’s deep? Kill who, me?”

She lifted her large, sea-blue eyes and looked away, as if listening, then turned them to meet his.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “This is the only way. But…it’s going to hurt.”

He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but the words died in his throat, strangled by pain and shock, as she plunged her hand into his midsection, like the blade of a knife. His vision whited out. She pushed on, reaching deeper and deeper inside him, separating bones and sinew, tearing through tissue and organs, till she found what she’d been seeking.

She did something that caused his body to seize and jerk spasmodically, but his eyes stared unseeing into oblivion, his mouth open and jaw hanging slack. He was somewhere far away, sinking swiftly into a black mire of death and horror. Alone.

_Alone._

_You are alone. Alone forever._

_Alo_—

Higgs sat bolt upright, gasping and clutching his chest, and looking wildly about him. That golden-haired girl in red…but she was nowhere to be seen. This wasn’t the Beach, it was his room in his shelter, and he was lying on his cot, not on the sand. He was cold and wet because his body was drenched with sweat and trembling from head to toe in the chill air of his subterranean dwelling.

He must’ve left the environmental controls offline. But that was odd. He rarely missed small details like that. He reached down to pull up his blanket and became aware that he was naked. That was even more peculiar. He wasn’t in the habit of going about in nothing but his skin, even when at home by himself. Why would he decide to do it now?

He racked his brain, but try as he might, he could not remember undressing or lying down, or even how he’d got home. There was a blank space in his mind, as if something were missing. All he could remember was that bizarre, vivid dream, with the girl in red tearing his body open and reaching inside.

He wrapped the blanket around himself and got up to go and check the environmental system. The moment he stood, burning knives of pain stabbed through his chest and knocked the wind out of him. He doubled over and fell to the floor on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe through the spasm, till it ebbed and faded to a dull, aching heat.

“What—the fuck,” he panted, as he rolled onto his back.

He laid his hand on his stomach without thinking, the way one instinctively touches an injured place on the body, then drew it back with start and pushed himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck to inspect his torso.

“What the fucking fuck.”

There, plainly visible on the smooth skin of his midsection, was an ugly, black and purple bruise. It began just below his ribcage and terminated an inch or so above his pubic hair, forming a border around an area of white, unbruised skin in the shape of a handprint, but much larger than any human hand could’ve made.

His face flushed with indignant anger at this violation of his body. All of this—the dream, the girl in red, the bruise, waking up with no clothes on—it all had something to do with her divine destructiveness.

He knew it’d be useless to attempt to ask her about it, now. He had no idea how to contact her if she didn’t come to him first, which she hadn’t done since the incident at Central Knot. She hadn’t even spoken to him in his head, which he hated anyway, but was inarguably efficient. He swallowed his wrath for the time being, and contented himself with grumbling about the many inconsiderate behaviors of deities as he bathed and dressed.

Hours later, he still felt heavy and sluggish, and found himself repeatedly holding a hand to his chest, as if the deep, internal ache could be soothed by superficial touch. He thought irritably that it had better not impair his performance tonight. He had a date with destiny.

He’d watched this man, studied him, and awaited his arrival with eager impatience. He could feel him now, hear his heartbeat, almost smell his blood. He was close. So close. And his unseen admirer was champing at the bit to finally confront him in person.

Her unholiness seemed to think Sam Porter Bridges could be deterred by a little thing like the prospect of his own certain death and those of tens of thousands of others, but Higgs begged to differ. He’d voided the man out and he’d kept coming. Took a whole city with him, woke up in a crater the size of Manhattan, and just picked himself up and kept right on coming. It was spectacular to see.

It would have suited Higgs to linger a while and play some more cat and mouse, but he’d been summoned back to Central on some pressing business. No rest for the wicked, and all that. But it seemed Sam Bridges hadn’t been resting, either.

Since the death of the president—may she rest in perdition—new links in the chiral chain had been lighting up all over the eastern seaboard. Now just about every prepper shelter and waystation out there was connected to UCA, each one marked on the map with a little white star. A constellation of idiots.

When Sam arrived in Port Knot, Higgs would be waiting with his welcoming gift. He’d let him hook the city up to the network first—it’d be impolite to interfere with the man’s work—but then it would be time for some fun.

Not too much. Just enough to wake him up and give him a little excitement. A change from the grinding drudgery of hauling loads of heavy shit all over god’s forsaken earth for a bunch of agoraphobic ingrates. If he’d slightly miscalculated and the game was a smidge out of Sam’s league, then…oh well. No use crying over spilled blood.

“After Middle Knot, you might say our partnership was officially dissolved. The whole world thought she was a terrorist, and the Fragile Express name was never trusted again. You know what happened next. The bomb and the choice I gave her. The rest is history.”

Sam remained silent for a moment, contemplating what he’d heard. “So, you and Fragile, you were…you loved each other.”

“No, Sam,” Higgs said patiently. “If you were paying attention, I’m sure you heard me say that I made her think I was in love with her in order to gain control of Fragile Express.”

“Yeah, I heard you _say_ that.”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying, I’m telling you I don’t believe you.”

“Well, that’s not very polite now, is it.”

“Maybe you weren’t in _love_ love with her, but you cared about her enough to want revenge when she rejected you. That’s why you betrayed her.”

“No, I betrayed her because I’d got what I wanted and had no more use for her.”

“Ok, well. Agree to disagree.”

“Agree to dis—that’s not how it works, Sam. You can’t know what was in my mind. I am telling you that was not the case.”

“I think I can.”

“Wait a goddamned minute. I just told you in agonizing detail how I made your friend suffer, how I intentionally destroyed everything she had, and that’s all you have to say? You think I…cared about her?”

“Yes? I mean, I knew pretty much all of it already.”

“Look at me, look me in the eye,” Higgs said, grabbing Sam by the shoulders and looking closely into his face. After a moment, he let him go, his brow furrowed with apparent bewilderment. “I don’t understand this. The mask is off, you can see everything.”

“Yep.”

“Don’t you…you know…want to tell me I can go to hell and you never want to see my face again?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

Sam shrugged. “You’re not that bad.”

“I’m not that—I get my power from death!” Higgs said, nearly beside himself. “I create chaos and kill people because I enjoy it! If you hadn’t noticed, I’m the fuckin’ bad guy. You do recall the part about the nuclear bombs, correct?”

“Yeah, Higgs. We live next to the craters.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “No offense, Sam, but there is somethin’ very wrong with you. The things I have—”

“I know what you did,” Sam interrupted. “No, you’ve been talking for like an hour, I get to say this one thing. You know what happened to my family. You know how I grew up and who raised me. You’re not the biggest monster I’ve known, and you’re not even close to being the biggest monster I’ve loved. Not by a long shot. So, no, I’m not that fucking horrified by you. I don’t want to hear any more of this ‘Sam I’m so dark and terrible you can never understand’ bullshit. I do understand. Maybe even better than you do.”

Higgs stood there staring at him open-mouthed.

“Anyway, that’s…all I had to say,” Sam said awkwardly. “Sorry I got upset like that. This is kind of a painful subject.”

Higgs shut his mouth and swallowed hard, but still said nothing. Sam saw that his face had gone ash-white.

“Hey, you ok? You look sick.”

“The biggest monster you’ve…loved?”

Sam frowned and looked away. “Come on, man. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t act like that. Like you didn’t know.”

Higgs blinked uncomprehendingly. “I didn’t—I don’t…I don’t know what that means.”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his forehead with one hand. “Jesus fucking Christ—I love you! I love you and you know it, and we’re not gonna argue about it because it just _is_ and nothing you say is gonna change it! Fucking…fuck! I’m gonna get a beer.”

With that, Sam turned and stalked off toward the safehouse, leaving Higgs stunned and speechless, trying to remember how to breathe. He was still far from certain what had just happened. Because it seemed like Sam had just angrily declared that he loved him. Yes, that was exactly what had happened. Well, perfect, now what the fuck was he supposed to do?

“Hey!” Sam shouted, across the yard. “I’m putting a movie on. You coming, or what?”


	8. St. Eriksplan

When Bridges had sent their official communication congratulating Mr. Englert on his new position as the security agent contracted to accompany Sam Porter Bridges on deliveries, it was also made clear that he was not to accompany him on _all_ deliveries. More specifically, that he was not to pass the scanner perimeter of any major UCA city.

Higgs wasn’t sure how they intended to stop him, but if this bit of bureaucratic nonsense helped them sleep at night, then so be it. He didn’t have any particular desire to enter their crowded, ugly cities anyway, so it was no skin off his nose.

Yesterday, this circumstance had actually arisen. Sam had been called urgently to Capital Knot, which was the biggest no-no on the no-Higgs list. Thus, for the first time since he’d agreed to wear the electronic leash, Higgs was left alone to amuse himself as he saw fit.

He immediately wondered if they really had someone monitoring his location at all times. His natural inclination was to fuck with whoever was assigned to keep tabs on him by jumping from place to place until they didn’t know what was what. But that wouldn’t be any fun unless he could be sure he was giving some surveillance officer a stress ulcer.

They must have people monitoring him, though, since the cufflinks were genuinely active. The fools had given him actual contractor clearance, too. He quickly discovered that this allowed him to view shipping routes, employee profiles, weather data…pretty much everything any low-level security agent could see.

He was lying in his cot, idly scanning the map, when he noticed a pair of light blue, man-shaped icons, crawling north along the highway toward Lake Knot. Huh. Apparently he could view the locations of active Bridges porters in the area, right on his cufflinks.

He guessed the man in the big chair hadn’t thought this through very well if that seemed like information Higgs could be trusted with. Pretty laissez faire attitude toward the safety of your citizens, Mr. President. For shame.

He swiped around on the map and found a few other pairs of little blue man-blips, moving very slowly along one delivery route or another. Not in real time, but in small increments every few seconds, as the location data updated and refreshed their positions.

A pair of them were blipping toward Mountain Knot, another had just arrived at Timefall Farm, and another were eking their way southwest between a prepper shelter marked simply “Engineer” (because apparently the UCA couldn’t be bothered to append proper names to the map data) and the distro center.

Before they reached the distro center, however, the man icons turned east and began blipping away from the road. Unwise, considering they were smack in the middle of an orange blob of MULE territory. He didn’t need the map to tell him where they were headed, though. This was his own country, and he was conversant with every rock and stream in the area.

Up on the high plateau northeast of the distro center, an old pre-Stranding holdout was still managing to cling to his life and land. Some part of the man’s tenacious longevity was owing to porters who braved the MULEs and the timefall, not to mention the steep climb, to bring him life-sustaining medical treatments. Higgs’ pair of man-blips must be engaged in one of these philanthropic endeavors now.

He swiped away to check in on the progress of the others. One pair had arrived at the Mountain Knot icon, the second were still making steadily for Lake Knot, and the third were hanging around at Timefall Farm. Probably sampling some of the excellent porter. The absurdity of a couple of porters drinking a beverage called porter irritated him and he swiped back up to the first pair.

Interesting. The two man-blips had divided and seemed to have stopped in separate areas inside the orange blob. MULEs must’ve knocked ‘em out and got a hold of whatever they were carrying up to the old man.

Maybe it was a side-effect his own days as a porter, but just the idea of MULEs set his teeth on edge. He detested those fucking slavering subhumans more than anything, even the Bridges people with their do-unto-others utopia bullshit. Bridges were idiots with ideology. MULEs were nothing but drones.

Their mindless, insect-like compulsion to steal anything with a cargo tag and hoard it away in the hive revolted him to his very core. And now these insects had attacked two porters who were doing nothing but an honest day’s work, carrying medicine to a lonely old-timer. And they’d done it right on Higgs’ own doorstep, as it were.

That settled him. He wouldn’t let wild dogs piss and shit all over his front lawn, and he’d be damned if he let MULEs do what amounted to the same thing. He put on his masks, slung an assault rifle over his shoulder, and stepped out of the material plane.

“Afternoon, gentlemen!”

The deep, booming voice rang out across the camp, echoing off the hard, uneven ground and jagged rocks, so that it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Eight or nine MULE masks popped up and pivoted to and fro, seeking the source of the voice. As they were looking stupidly about them, more of their comrades ran up, whooping and pointing their stun spears at the area above their largest tent.

Almost as one, all the MULE masks turned upward and fixed their gaze on a single point. A man, they thought. But this man was floating ten feet above the ground, which even they knew men couldn’t do. They grunted in apelike consternation at the phenomenon, and some of the more enterprising among then pitched spears at him.

With popping flashes of red fire, he flickered in and out of sight. The spears fell harmless on the other side of the tent. This perplexed the MULEs even further. Their grunts grew more aggressive and more spears were readied, as though they’d meet with better success on a second attempt.

Suddenly, the man shuddered out of existence and flared back into being right in their midst. Some started back with a cry, but most of them held their ground, brandishing their weapons against this strange thing that had descended among them.

The intruder spread his arms as if in challenge, revealing the brilliant, gold stripes on the inside of his black cloak. They could see now that below his hood, he wore a black VOG mask, and over this, a golden mask like a skull.

A breathless beat passed, then one of them lunged forward from the pack, aiming a spear at his chest. With a flick of his wrist, the man in the golden mask flung their comrade through the air, sending him crashing into some crates, thirty yards away.

The rest of them howled and rushed in to the attack. He held up a black and gold-gloved hand, palm outward. A sudden, eerie silence fell over the camp as the whole lot of them halted and stood rooted to the spot, as if they’d collectively lost command of their limbs.

The golden mask looked them over one by one, then tilted curiously to one side. “Well, well, well. What have we here.”

He reached out a hand and one of them rose from the ground and sailed toward him. The others stared in mute awe as he held their compatriot suspended in the air before him, appearing to inspect the steel cargo containers on his pack.

“It ain’t polite to take things that don’t belong to you,” he said, in a voice that resonated through their very bones. 

He dropped their comrade into the dirt, then reached up and pulled off the skull mask. They stumbled backward in panic, seeing a black swell of tar boiling up from the earth around his feet. Lightning crackled and sparked from the golden skull as he held it aloft above his head. Then he plunged it into the tar.

As he drew it back up, a pillar of pitch followed it, building and coalescing, bulging into a hulking, hideous form. A monstrous, black thing in the shape of a nightmare lion, nearly twenty feet in height, and wearing a massive, golden mask of its own. It threw back its mane of inky tendrils and roared like a hurricane from depths of hell. 

The MULEs cried out in fear and dismay, some falling to their knees, others casting away their weapons. The lion lowered its massive head and gave a menacing rumble, putting out a twisted, writhing forepaw to step toward them. The man in the golden mask laughed and patted the thing’s oil-black leg, then turned to the terror-stricken MULEs.

“Lucky for you, I’m feelin’ a bit sentimental today,” he said. “So I’ll give you a chance to make amends. You, there. Pick up every container in this camp with a tag like that one and put it down right here. The rest of you, the same goes for your postboxes. Every single container. You four, stop right there. Go and get those two porters you knocked out and bring ‘em to me. Quick now! My sweetheart’s gettin’ hungry.”

The petrified and utterly confounded MULEs scattered, scrambling to do the man’s bidding. He leaned on a tent pole and watched as they brought the containers and stacked them up, cowering beneath the watchful gaze the nightmare lion, which stalked back and forth before the man like a sentry of Satan himself.

Within ten minutes or so, the four he had sent in search of the porters came hurrying up, carrying the unconscious men between them. The lion snorted and tossed its head.

“I know, darlin’. I don’t like the smell of ‘em, either. You four, put these two in the cab of that truck. The rest of you, load all this shit into the back. Except those. Anything tagged for the Elder stays right here.”

These orders were accomplished with astonishing alacrity, then the MULEs gathered and stood meekly before the man, as if awaiting further instructions.

“Well, look at that. I guess you can be taught to do as you’re told,” he said, with a sneering laugh. “One of you drive that truck to the distro center and leave it there. Porters and cargo untouched, or my little angel here is gettin’ a treat. I’ll take those.”

He waved his hand, and the cargo containers addressed to the Elder vanished in a shimmer of black particles. Then he rose into the air above them and sat astride the pawing, snarling hell-beast.

“I know it’s useless to tell you to mind your manners from now on,” he called down to the bewildered MULEs. “But remember, next time you see me, I might not be in such a generous mood.”

With that, the creature leapt off the ground, and with a blaze of fire and a shuddering roar, both lion and rider vanished.

The perimeter scanners sounded a blaring alert, waking the old man with a start (and a snort, if he would have admitted it). He rose stiffly from his easy chair, muttering about the cold and his aching joints, as he hobbled over to the monitor and tapped the screen. He was disappointed when the holo-display shimmered to life, revealing a distro-center porter in a blue Bridges uniform and cap, but he concealed it, not wanting to appear ungrateful.

“Hello, young man,” he said cheerfully, in his cracked, weathered voice. “You have a delivery for me?”

The porter’s holographic image nodded. “Yes, sir. Let me see…heart medication, herbal supplements, enriched potting soil, and uh…a pacemaker battery. Good thing we got that to you. Seems important.”

The old man watched as the porter pushed all of the containers into the delivery drawer, then he went to look them over.

“Thank you for taking such good care of everything,” he said, when his hologram reappeared. “It is all in excellent condition. But this is very strange. Some of these things, I ordered weeks ago. I had given up on them. No one but Sam Bridges delivers cargo that has been lost.”

“Oh, this is Sam’s delivery, sir,” the porter’s clipped, oddly nasal voice replied. “I just happen to be filling in for him today. He’s over in Eastern, doing what he does.”

“I see. Well, I hope he will come back this way soon. Not that I don’t appreciate the hard work all of you porters do, but I have a little present I wanted to give to him.”

“He’ll be back in a few days,” the porter replied. “I’m sure he’ll come around soon. I could let him know he has something waiting here, if you’d like.”

The old man tried to get a better look at him as he spoke, but he kept his head down and his eyes were obscured below the brim of his cap. His manner was friendly enough, and his Bridges ID tag was valid, but the old man couldn’t shake a growing feeling of unease. There was something strange and yet so familiar about this porter. Something that made him want reach out and take him by the hand, but at the same time, to recoil and hide his face from him, like a child hiding from the bogeyman.

“That would be very kind of you,” he said, forcing his mind back to the conversation. “Ah, I didn’t catch your name, young man.”

“It’s Peter. My, uh…my friends call me Pete.”

“I am glad to meet you, Pete. Thank you again for bringing these things to me. And please remember, tell Sam to come and see me soon.”

“I will,” the porter said, turning away with a wave. “Afternoon, sir.”

When he was well outside the ring of perimeter scanners, Higgs turned and looked back at the shelter, sitting grey and solitary atop the broad plateau, surrounded by tall grass and little white flowers. Like a tomb in some ancient cemetery, where nature had returned to pull down the monuments of death, with slow and loving hands, and return them to the earth.

One day, this place would be pulled down in the same way, with the same patient care, till no trace of it remained to mar her wild beauty. One day much sooner, the earth would take the old man back to her bosom. Raised from dust and to dust returning, as was his natural course. Or would have been, before the worlds had collided and the meeting of life and death had become a thing of violent cataclysm, rather than peaceful release.

Long ago, a boy, starving and half-wild, had scaled the treacherous rocks of this plateau to escape from MULEs that had been pursuing him, attempting to capture the scavenged cargo he carried. In the cold and darkness and blowing rain, he had happened upon this shelter.

The old man, for he had been old even then, had been kind to the boy. He had given him food and shelter for the night, and never tried to touch him or his precious, scavenged scrap. He sat in his easy chair and told the boy stories of the old days in his warm, homely voice, till he drifted off to sleep.

Before dawn, the boy had risen and slipped away without waking the old man. He should have thanked him. Maybe he would, one day soon.

Sam arrived home late in the evening and steered directly to the safehouse to park the truck and dump his gear. He placed Lou’s tank in its port, then stripped and stowed his jumpsuit before he showered. Thus unburdened of both gear and road-dirt, he crossed the yard and went down into the shelter. He found Higgs reclining on his cot, idly flipping through the Bridges staff profiles on his cufflinks.

“Hey, how’s it—” Sam began, then stopped in the doorway and stood staring at him as if he’d never seen him before.

Higgs looked up at him and frowned. “What are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sorry,” Sam smiled. “I just—this is the first time I’ve seen you dressed like a person. You know, without all your body armor and shit. It’s…nice.”

Higgs glanced down at himself reflexively. The thought that Sam had never seen him without armor hadn’t even crossed his mind. He was wearing a drab-green, thermal undershirt with long sleeves, and black trekking pants similar to Sam’s. The thermal shirt was rather close-fitting, though, and he suddenly felt extraordinarily exposed.

Not that he had anything to be ashamed of. He was rather proud of his body as a tool and a weapon. He was tall and broad-shouldered, which gave him an intimidating physical presence. He wasn’t nearly as square and sturdy as Sam, but he was faster and leaner.

His spare, muscular physique was the natural result of a life of strenuous activity in a hard, forbidding environment, and many days without enough to eat. He’d never considered whether its arrangement would please the eye of another person. He had never cared.

He didn’t care now, god damn it. Sam was still looking at him with that stupid smile, though, and he could feel his ears getting hot, so he shut off the cufflinks screen and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms on his chest.

“How’s the capital,” he said drily. “Still standing?”

“Pretty much,” Sam shrugged. “You didn’t hang around here the whole time I was gone, did you?”

“Pretty much.”

“That must have been boring as fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Boring people get bored. I have no problem making my own entertainment.”

“Yeah, I’d say. You only own a thousand books.”

“Literature feeds the soul, Sammy. You should try reading once in a while, instead of just watching movies.”

“Oh, hey, you want to watch a movie? I found a memory chip and it uploaded like a hundred new ones onto the network.”

“Anything good?”

“We won’t know till we try ‘em. Also, I brought pizza.”

“Now you’re speakin’ my language.”

Higgs followed Sam to the safehouse, still feeling painfully self-conscious about his state of dress, but he couldn’t put something else on now that Sam had remarked on it without revealing how conscious of it he was. So he bore it with admirable fortitude as he ate his pizza and listened to Sam talk about the exciting things the UCA was planning.

Finally, they seated themselves on Sam’s bed, and Sam called for the lights to shut off, plunging the room into merciful darkness, but for the warm, orange glow of Lou’s tank and the blue glow of the floating display, upon which they watched the ridiculous films Sam seemed to enjoy.

When he agreed to watch tonight’s ridiculous film, Higgs had failed to take into account its length, the late hour, and the amount of traveling Sam had done that day. As such, when it ended, he found himself in the awkward position of being seated in Sam’s bed, reclined against the wall, with Sam wrapped around him like a thoroughly unconscious and very heavy octopus.

After a moment debating what he ought to do, he reached up and gave him a ginger little shake. “Sam, wake up.”

“I’m awake,” Sam mumbled into his chest. “I’m…”

Higgs sighed and attempted to disentangle himself, but Sam’s arms instantly constricted.

“Where are you going?”

“The movie’s over. I gotta go or I’ll fall asleep here.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with what?”

“Sleeping here.”

“My own bed is thirty yards away, Sam.”

Sam lifted his head and squinted at him. “Calling that thing a bed doesn’t make it one.”

“Cot, then.”

“Yeah. It’s a piece of canvas on some sticks. I have blankets and pillows, and my bed has this soft thing on it.”

“A mattress.”

“Whatever. Your cot sucks. Stay here.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, it’s no big deal,” Sam said, shaking him playfully. “We’ve slept together before.”

“You are referring to the incident in which you came into my home while I was sick out of my mind and got into my bed without permission, correct?”

“Cot.”

“I swear to the holy mother—”

“No swearing in front of Lou. And you know I was trying to take care of you because you’d died and repatriated, but like, the worst anyone has ever done it.”

“Has anyone else ever done it? Besides you and me?”

“I dunno. Move so I can lay out the blankets and stuff.”

“I didn’t say I’d stay.”

“You looked it.”

Higgs arched an eyebrow. “I looked it?”

“You look a lot of things at me. You have very talkative eyes, Higgs.”

“What are they saying right now.”

“That you want to sleep here.” Sam tilted his head thoughtfully. “Or that you want to stab me. It’s not an exact science.”

“Jesus Christ,” Higgs muttered, forced to suppress a smile. “Alright, fine. But I’m only staying because it’s cold as shit out there.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re just using me for my ambient heat. Oh, but I should warn you, I sleep in the nude.”

“You’re real funny, Sam, anyone ever tell you that?”

Sam flopped onto the bed and lay there smiling up at him and patting the mattress. Higgs rolled his eyes and laid down on his side, facing away from him. A beat or two passed, then a strong arm coiled around his waist and pulled him close against Sam’s warm, solid body. Sam buried his face in the back of his neck and breathed a long sigh, that made Higgs’ stomach do a flip-flop thing like he’d stepped off a bottom stair that was deeper than he expected. For a long time, he lay wide awake, staring at Lou’s tank and trying to seem like he was breathing normally.

“Sam.”

“Hm.”

“I don’t…I haven’t…”

“I know,” Sam murmured, reaching up and clasping his hand, lacing their fingers together. “This is good. This is perfect.”


	9. Without You

Higgs was restless. Agitated and tense, as he hadn’t been in a long time. Sam was off having some issue with his BB checked out at Lake Knot, there’d been no MULE aggression to stomp out for a while, and he was literally aching for something to do. Used to be, he’d had more to do than any one man could handle. Then the EE had fucked up all their beautiful plans and spit him back out in the world of the living, a nobody with no cause. Nothing to work and strive for that would give his life some kind of meaning.

Sam was good at spreading a blanket of calm over everything in his proximity, even Higgs, but when he was away, Higgs returned to his turbulent and volatile moods. This morning found him standing atop his shelter, gazing out over the K-5 craters, spinning into darker and darker trains of thought.

As if in response to his internal turmoil, his cufflinks chimed with an incoming communication, for the first time since he’d had them. He was offended by the presumptuousness of such an intrusion, but he felt an odd sense of relief, too. Even talking to one of the Bridges bozos would be contact with someone, and he was almost starving for it.

“Well?” he said shortly, as the screen popped up.

“Hi, Higgs,” a pretty, female voice came back, accompanied by an onscreen image of an equally pretty young woman. “I’m Lockne. Sorry to call you out of nowhere like this, but you’re working with Sam, now, which means I’ll be handling a lot of your tech-related stuff. I thought I should introduce myself.”

The manifold blow of the lovely face, the frank, open manner, and the sheer boldness of the gesture stunned Higgs, and he staggered under it.

“Mornin’, Lockne,” he said, managing to keep his tone smooth and casual. “It’s very neighborly of you to call, but I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to make believe like I’m Security Officer Peter Englert. On official frequencies, I mean.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that,” she said breezily. “The chiral network is my baby. If they have a problem with what I say over my own airwaves, they can take it up with me.”

Higgs decided that he rather liked this woman. “Sounds like that’d be their mistake. So, what can I do for you, ma’am?”

“Well, I did call to introduce myself, but actually…there is something specific we wanted to talk to you about. Målingen and me. But we can’t do it over the codec. Is there any chance you’ll be up near Mountain Knot sometime soon? We’d like to meet with you in person. If that’s ok with you.”

“I’d be delighted. I can be anywhere you want, any time. Just say the word.”

“Oh, wow. That’s…great,” she said, perceptibly surprised to meet with this kind of ready agreement to her request. “Are you—are you free now?”

“For you? Sure, what the hell.”

With that, he was standing in her presence. She gave a jump at his abrupt appearance, with its shudder of flame and roaring of rush of air.

“Oh my—fuck!” she exclaimed, holding a hand to her heart. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”

“I apologize for that, darlin’,” he said, with a devilish smile. “I thought you understood what I meant by anywhere, any time.”

“I—yes, of course. I should’ve thought of that. I just, uh…didn’t expect to…holy shit. You’re right here, in my lab.”

She was staring up at him, wide-eyed, like he was a tiger that might pounce, and he didn’t find the sensation entirely disagreeable. He hadn’t so much as startled anyone since he’d fucked with those MULEs, and he’d been beginning to miss the feeling of power that attended another human being’s palpable dread of him.

He stepped closer and smiled down at her. “I hope you’re not scared of little ol’ me. I don’t bite.”

“Oh, no. Not at all,” she said. “I mean, yes. A little bit. Wow. You’re…so much bigger in person.”

“That what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Of course not,” she laughed. “I guess I’ll just jump right in. You are a very unique individual. It’s doubtful that there’s ever even been a living person with DOOMs at your level. We have never studied a subject like you and we may never get another chance. So, Målingen and I wanted to ask you some questions. If you wouldn’t mind.”

“I am at your disposal,” he said, with a bow. He gestured to a chair beside the black table nearby. “May I?”

“Yes, please,” she said. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

She set a tablet down on the table and sat in the chair across from his, with her hands folded before her, studying his face with eager interest. He sat at his ease, letting her inspect him to her heart’s content.

“Fascinating,” she murmured, then caught herself. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be weird. It’s just…I’ve never seen your face.”

“Well, this is it,” he said wryly. “I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“No, no, it’s not that. You just don’t look anything like I’d imagined. You’re so young.”

“Relatively.”

“Is that…kohl, like the ancient Egyptians wore? You know, to protect their eyes from the sun and ward off evil spirits and all that?”

“It is. Its effectiveness in either case is debatable, but it’s part of my general aesthetic.”

“It looks cool, too,” she grinned.

“It also distracts people. Keeps ‘em from lookin’ right into my eyes.”

As he said this, he caught her large, luminous eyes, one brilliant blue and one golden-green, with his and held them. She returned his gaze without flinching, or even reducing the brightness of her smile. He could see the other one in there, too, but she was keeping quiet for now. He had wondered if these two would be afraid of what they saw behind the mask. Now he had his answer.

“You had some questions for me,” he said, leaning back and crossing his arms.

“Right. Yes. And thanks again for doing this. Let me see. Your DOOMs became active when you were a child, correct?”

“Closer to teenaged, but yes. I was thirteen.”

“And you discovered your abilities due to a necrotization and subsequent voidout in your close proximity, which failed to kill you.”

“Yes.”

“It was an immediate family member?”

“An uncle. Maternal.”

“Any other cases of DOOMs in your family?”

“No.”

“We ask that because we know there’s a genetic factor involved, but we haven’t worked out the—that’s not important right now. So, you are a repatriate, correct?”

“I am.”

“That's very exciting. You and Sam are the only two known repatriates in the world, as far as we have been able to study it. And with your DOOMs factor, you are just…there has probably never been a scientific phenomenon like you.”

“I’ll attempt to take that as a compliment.”

“This next one is a little personal, so I apologize. At any point in your life, have you lived in consistent contact with another high-level DOOMs sufferer?”

“Yes. One.”

“Are you aware of their extinction factor?”

“No, but I’m sure you are. It was Fragile.”

“Right, of course. You were business partners, at one point, yes?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Got it. That’s not really the kind of contact we mean, so I’ll cross that one off.”

“Hold up a minute. What kind of contact do you mean?”

“We mean close, personal connection, frequent physical contact, that kind of thing.”

“I see. Don’t cross that one off, then.”

She looked up at him with a frown. “Are you…were you and she…”

“More than business partners? Yes, we were.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. That is certainly something to note.”

“I’d say.”

“Would you…would you characterize your relationship as…” color rose into her cheeks and she looked down at the tablet.

“I don’t know how to characterize our relationship,” he said curtly. “We weren’t friends and we weren’t lovers. We were…somethin’ in between, I guess.”

Lockne took a deep breath, then they both looked up at him. Their eyes were glossy and bright, as if they were about to cry.

“We feel it. Your connection. When it broke…it hurt so much. It almost killed you both.”

Higgs looked back into their beautiful eyes, filled with understanding and love, and sorrow for his suffering, and the ice cracked. He looked away and spoke in a flat, toneless voice.

“It almost destroyed me. Then I tried to destroy her.”

They lowered their long eyelashes, and a tear rolled down their pale face. “You loved her.”

“No, I—I didn’t love her like that. Not the way a man should love a woman. I did love her in a kind of way, but it was…twisted. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Lockne and Målingen paused to consider their next words carefully. They’d been blindsided by this very powerful and extremely dangerous man suddenly opening his heart to them to this astonishing degree, and now they must take great care not to scare him away, lest he slam the door shut again.

“If you described what you felt at the time,” they said cautiously, “just in small, plain words, it might help you understand it better.”

He chafed his hands together anxiously, still gazing at the table. His entire being revolted against what he was doing, but he found himself unable to stop. As if these two young women had tapped into the venom that had been eating away his insides, and were drawing it out of him, somehow.

“I was obsessed. Fixated on the idea of her. I wanted to possess her. I wanted her to submit her will to mine and let me be everything to her. But even then, I never wanted her…physically. I couldn’t. She knew it. She told me she needed someone who could be with her that way, but I thought if she could just see how much I loved her, she’d…” He trailed off and shook his head, with a bitter smile. “Well, I took off the mask. She saw me for what I was. All of it. And she _hated_ me. She couldn’t even hide it. She looked at me like…I wasn’t even human. Like I was a monster wearin’ a man’s face. And I guess I was. You know what I did to her.”

“Are you a monster now?” Lockne asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I am anymore.” He clutched convulsively at the front of his uniform top. “I thought I did but…somethin’ in here is…changing. Feels like my bones are all breakin’ and gettin’ reset all the time and sometimes I’m so sick with the pain I’d give anything to just be allowed to die.”

“Anything?”

“Anything I could give. There’s one thing I can’t.”

“Sam.”

“If I could cut the cord and let him get free of me I would. I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I know I can’t. Nothin’ I can do will break this bond and the harder I fight with it, the more it hurts. The more it hurts him. So, here I am. Tethered to the world I tried to end. Condemned to live in it forever and watch it die by slow decay. A false prophet to a dead god. I’m nothin’ now but a fool.”

“Higgs? It’s me. Målingen.”

He nodded. “I know. I can tell which one of you’s talkin’.”

Their eyes lit up with a soft smile. “Most people can’t. If you know it’s me, then you know I’m on the other side. I can see you there, just like Lockne sees you here, in this world.”

“That a fact,” Higgs smirked. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful. Just like you are here.”

He blinked, then laughed outright. “It’s sweet of you to say so, darlin’, but we both know that ain’t true.”

“It is true,” she persisted, in her gentle, irresistible way. “You’re beautiful because you are exactly what you are. Not many people can make that claim.”

“I don’t think many people, including me, would even know what you mean by that.”

“I mean you didn’t choose to be what you are. You were placed in that role by fate or chance or whatever you want to call it, but in the end, you embraced it. You embraced death. You became its advocate and champion. You think that makes you some kind of monster, but it doesn’t. Trust me, I know. I’m dead.”

“That sounds real nice, from a big-picture, universe kind of perspective, but the plain truth is I killed a lot of people,” he said, looking them in the eye. “I reduced whole cities to smoking rubble. I killed men and women and children indiscriminately, and I enjoyed it. I loved it. I felt like I was the only free man on earth and all the pain and chaos was part of tearin’ down that big ol’ lie. Hope. People think they’re suffering because of the Stranding or terrorists or sickness or isolation, but it’s hope. Hope is the thing that makes ‘em suffer.”

“From a big-picture, universe perspective, you could argue that hope is what makes people suffer, sure,” Målingen said. “That when judged by that scale, nothing we can do will make a difference, for better or worse. But you’d be wrong.”

“The universe is a system,” Lockne continued. “Human beings aren’t some other thing that’s separate from the rest of it. We are part of the system, the same as supergiant stars and cosmic nebulae and atomic particles. But humanity itself is far more precious, in the big picture, than any of those things.”

She paused and Målingen took up the thread. “We are an arrangement of physical matter that by a miracle of probability has become self aware. We are able to hope and fear and suffer and love, and to look out at those stars and feel wonder. We are the universe, aware of itself.”

“When we suffer, the system suffers. When we keep up hope and do everything we can to help each other, the system feels those things, too. Because we are part of that system.”

“I gotta say you’re not makin’ much of a case for me not bein’ a monster,” Higgs said. “If anything, you’re sayin’ what I did was even more significant than I thought it was.”

“But don’t you see? That’s just what we mean,” Lockne said. “That was your role in the cycle of the universe. The fact that you’re standing here is evidence enough that you did what you were meant to do.”

“You’re alive, and you’re connected to the dead on the other side,” Målingen interjected. “You feel us and see us and hear our voices like no one else on that side can. In that world, you _are_ death. Just like Sam is life.”

“You lost me. We’re what, now?”

“You and Sam are life and death. Their representatives, at least. Opposing forces. You were always going to explode when you made contact, like matter and antimatter. It wasn’t your fault any more than it was his. It’s just your nature.”

“Exactly. And when you were placed in those opposing roles, that also made you two sides of the same coin. Connected you, right in the fabric of your being. You literally can’t exist without each other, now.”

“That’s why it hurts,” Higgs said, laying his hand on his chest. “Why I feel the connection so strongly.”

“We think so.”

“But if that’s true, that means Sam and I will always be in conflict with each other. We’ll always be two forces pulling the world in opposite directions.”

Lockne nodded. “Yes, and you know what else you call two forces constantly pulling in opposite directions?”

“Tug-of-war?”

Målingen smiled. “Balance.”

“Oh.” Higgs paused, frowning, then his expression changed and his face drained of color. “Oh…fuck. Oh fuck, we lost. We really lost.”

They looked confused. “Who lost?”

“Death!” Higgs jumped up from his chair and began to pace. “Death lost and life won. It won by incorporating death into its own system and creating…balance. That’s what Sam and I are. We’re the solution to the extinction.” He reached up and raked his fingers feverishly through his hair. “Holy shit, are we even real? Is anything real?”

“Ok, don’t break your brain about it,” Målingen laughed. “Of course you’re real. You’re two men, existing together in the material world. But you’re the representatives of life and death, too. Sam for the the living, and you for the dead.”

“That’s why we’re stuck here, then,” Higgs said in an increasingly unsteady voice. “Why we can’t die. We’re here to restore the balance between the two worlds.”

“We think you are. And we think that was Amelie’s plan, all along.”

“No…” he said, shaking his head slowly. Then he turned on them, his blue eyes ablaze. “No! Fuck this and fuck her! This is not what I wanted! I am not some universal handyman here to fix everything I worked so hard to fuck up. I won’t. You hear me, I won’t do it!”

They rose from their chair and crossed to where he stood. For a brief moment, he stared at them, wild-eyed and on his guard, as if deciding whether to fight or flee. But they opened their arms and drew him in, and he surrendered, letting his tall, heavy body go slack against their small, slight frame. Despite the difference in their relative masses, they supported him with little apparent difficulty, rocking and soothing him like a child.

“I won’t—I won’t do it,” he choked out. “I can’t.”

“You can,” they whispered, laying a warm cheek against his. “You and Sam, together. You can do it for him. You love him.”

“I don’t fuckin’…I don’t love anyone.”

“_You_ don’t even believe that,” Lockne said, with a musical little laugh. “You may be death incarnate, but you’re still just a man. Your heart is as susceptible to love as any other man’s.”

“Higgs, listen,” Målingen said. “There is one more thing we wanted to talk to you about. You know the BTs only seem like monsters to the living because they are matter out of place. They’re trapped in a world where they don’t belong, and they are afraid and alone and suffering. You can set them free. You can send them home.”

“I know I can. I’ve done it. But it doesn’t matter. People will keep right on being born and dying and making new ones, no matter how many I set free.”

“Not forever. Eventually, there will be a final death.”

“You won’t be free of this world until then. When the last cord is cut.”

He pulled away and looked down into their face. “But you’re talking about millions of deaths. Tens…maybe hundreds of thousands of years.”

“You have time. All the time in the world.”

“This can’t be true.” His face went sickly grey again and he sunk back into his chair. “This thing you’re saying I have to do, it’s…impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” Målingen said. “It’s just going to be really hard. You and the EE spun the balance way out of control, and the systems in the universe don’t work on a small scale.”

“She did what she could on her end,” Lockne added. “But there’s still a big fucking mess to clean up on this side. You won’t be alone, though. Sam will be right there with you, till the end.”

They smiled together. “And as long as we last, you’ll have us, too.”

Higgs groaned and laid his forehead on the table. “What did I do to deserve this? I mean, I know what I did, and I do deserve it. But it fucking sucks.”

Målingen laughed again and patted his back. “No one’s asking you to restore the balance of life and death all in a day. Just take it step by step, like—”

“Like alcoholics. One day at a fuckin’ time.”

Lockne arched an eyebrow. “There are worse fates than spending eternity with the man you love, Higgs.”

“I told you, I don’t…fuck it, fuck me, I do. I love him. I love that surly little bastard more than anyone’s probably ever loved anyone in the whole history of doe-eyed dipshits.” He rolled his head to the side and looked up at them miserably. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with loving Sam,” Målingen said. “He’s a lovable guy.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lockne agreed. “He’s so…uh…”

“Odd looking.”

“In a good way!”

“And he’s super…kind of friendly.”

“When he actually talks.”

“He’s a man of few words.”

“Strong, silent type.”

“Very strong.”

“Like…a sexy pack mule.”

“Also in a good way. And um—”

“He’s got that scruffy ‘who cares’ thing going.”

“That’s…sort of cool?”

“Alright, alright, I fuckin’ get it,” Higgs said, dragging himself to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go crawl into a hole and not die.”

“Oh, ok. Bye, Higgs!”

“Come and see us again soon!”

“And call us any time. I don’t sleep, so literally. Any time.”

Higgs nodded wearily. “I’ll do that. See you around, ladies. Thanks for your…help.”

“Hey, there you are,” Sam said cheerfully, when Higgs materialized inside the safehouse. “You left your cuffs here, is everything ok?”

“Hm? Oh…yeah. I popped over to see the twin Snakes. I didn’t want to set off Mountain Knot’s anti-Higgs detection systems.”

“How are Liquid and Solid doing? I haven’t talked to them in a while.”

“They’re…a lot to handle,” Higgs said, falling onto Sam’s bed. “They had a fuckload of shit to say that I’m not done disbelieving yet, so I’m gonna lay here and be in denial for a bit.”

“Oh,” Sam nodded. “They told you all that, about the life and death balance and everything.”

“What—you already fuckin’ knew?”

“Yeah. It’s wild, right?”

“Yes, Sam. Wild is certainly a word I would ever use to describe anything that is not an animal or a type of rice. I can’t believe you’re so goddamned calm about this. They basically said you and I are the post-Stranding janitorial staff now and oh, congratulations, we get to do it _forever_.”

“I’m calm about most stuff. It doesn’t do any good fighting shit you can’t change.”

“Well, pardon me if your profound philosophy of ‘just go with the flow, dude’ doesn’t give me much relief. Especially not in the case of my condemnation to eternal penance.”

“I don’t think it’s penance. It’s more like…Zen gardening.”

“Zen fuckin’ garden—no, please do not explain that part. I’m not ready for that deep a glimpse into the Sam abyss. Why don’t you think it’s penance?”

Sam shrugged. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You didn’t. I did many things wrong. So very, very many things.”

“You were just doing what you were supposed to.”

“The Snakes said I fucked up and had a huge mess to deal with.”

“They told me you had a huge mess to deal with, but not that you fucked up. You were supposed upset the balance and make the mess. It’s part of the cycle.”

“I think you’re all tryin’ to drive me out of my fuckin’ mind,” Higgs said, massaging his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It’s a conspiracy.”

“I told you, there’s no conspiracy.” Sam seated himself on the edge of the bed and took his hands in his own. “Cut that out. You’re gonna smear your eyeliner all over your face.”

“It is not eyeliner, it is _kohl_.”

“I like it.”

“Thank you, it’s—ow! Christ, you’re so fuckin’ heavy.”

“I can’t help it that I’m heavy,” Sam said, intentionally resting even more of his weight on him. “It’s all muscle. I work hard.”

Higgs let a hand slide up his waist and rest on his well-toned upper back. “I know you do. One of the Snakes called you a sexy pack mule.”

“Which one?”

“Solid.”

“I guess that’s…nice of her? It was Liquid I was carrying around on my back when you sent that panther thing after me, though. She’d know better.”

“It’s a lion and you know it’s a lion.”

“Lions aren’t black, Higgs.”

“Panthers don’t have manes, Sam!”

“Lions don’t have manes made of void tentacles.”

“But you recognized the silhouette! Lion!”

“Fine, it’s a lion. Wow, you really must’ve had a hard time with them. You’re fussy.”

“I am not fussy. I am upset in a manly, grown-up way.”

“Boowooo,” Lou chimed in from her tank.

“No one asked you,” Higgs grumbled.

“Hey, you want to take a ride on some ziplines? That always cheers Lou up.”

“I am not a jar of infant, Sam! I am a grown man!”

“Mwab!”

“Lou finds that offensive.”

“I gathered,” Higgs said drily. “I apologize for callin’ you a jar of infant, Lou. You are an infant _in_ a jar. What is that? What’s she doing?”

“I’ve been teaching her to give people the finger. She hasn’t really got the hang of it yet. Good effort, Lou! You’ll get it!”

Higgs sighed. “And the Bridges people thought, yes, this is the man with whom we can certainly trust the care of a small human being. What could go wrong.”

“Those assholes didn’t give a shit about her, one way or another,” Sam said bitterly. “They were gonna throw her out. Like a fucking broken toaster.”

“Are you fucking shitting me? I thought I was the bad guy!” Higgs half shouted. “Sam, are you absolutely sure you don’t want me to bomb those people off the face of the earth? I’ll do it.”

“Wabaaaaaa!”

“No, Lou. No blowing people up. Don’t give her ideas, Higgs, she’s impressionable.”

“And bloodthirsty. I’m startin’ to like your kid, Sam.”

“Bweh!” Lou replied, pulling a fearsome grimace.

Higgs raised his eyebrows. “Ooh-hoo! Well excuse you, miss. Where’d you learn that kinda talk, your daddy?”

“Wa-pwah!”

“And I apologize with all my heart, darlin’. If it makes you feel better, I promise I won’t shoot him anymore. Scout’s honor.”

“How the fuck can you understand her?” Sam asked, looking over at Lou, then back at Higgs. “She doesn’t know any real words yet.”

“She makes herself pretty clear, Sam. She doesn’t need to be articulate to be expressive. Do you, Louise.”

“Ooom.”

“See?”

“Well, you two can have a nice long chat when it’s not past her bedtime,” Sam said, turning to the tank. “Lights out, baby girl.”

Lou immediately stretched her arms and yawned in the gold-toned fluid, then her tank went dark.

“How’d you teach her to do that?”

“It wasn’t that hard. She sleeps most of the time, anyway. You want to watch a movie or something?”

“No.”

“Do you want to—oh. Mmmm.”

When, after a very long moment, they broke the kiss, Higgs reached up and pushed Sam’s hair back from his face, looking searchingly into his eyes.

“Forever is a long time, Sam,” he said. “When I try to look into that long, black tunnel I can’t see the end anymore. Just…don’t give up on me. I can’t do this without you.”

“Never,” Sam said, pulling him close and pressing another kiss to his lips. “I’ll never give up on you, I swear. I love you.”

Higgs took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I…I love you, too.”

“MUUUU BAWOOOO!” Lou’s teeny voice bellowed from her tank.

“What did I just say about bedtime, young lady!”


	10. Poznań

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OOPS IT GOT EXPLICIT  
(sort of)

The sun shone dim and cold behind its chiral veil. Wind whipped across the time-gnawed waste, kicking up stinging flurries of sand. High above the white peaks of the mountains, an inverted rainbow glimmered into view, a brilliant arc of color in the grey sky.

Among the blasted rocks and sooty gravel, like a small prey animal, nearly invisible against its native landscape, a little girl was running for her life. Her grey smock dress and black all-weather boots were spattered all over with mud, as if she’d already taken a bad spill, but she showed no sign of slowing. Her dark-brown hair had got loose of its ponytail and flew wild about her shoulders as she ran like the devil was at her heels.

With a last, desperate burst of speed, she veered sharply and made a mad rush for the shallow end of a crevasse. Just as she vanished inside, her little foot slipped on some loose scree and sent her tumbling forward. With remarkable dexterity for a child so young, however, she used the momentum of the fall to dive into a recess in the ragged wall of the crevasse, just in the nick of time.

Colossal footsteps pounded the hard-packed earth above, shaking rocks loose from the eroded walls, which plopped into the rough gravel all around her. She crouched low and clamped her chubby little hand over her mouth and nose, pressing her back flat against the ragged stone, and felt the very wind on her face as her pursuer thundered past, like an inky-black freight-train.

Flushed and trembling, and nearly choking for air, the little girl just managed to hold her breath till the footsteps faded into the distance. Then she uncovered her mouth and sat for a moment, panting like a hunted rodent in the temporary respite of an accommodating hedge. Cautiously, as quietly as a mouse, she drew herself up and crept along the inner wall of the crevasse, till she reached the further opening. Here she paused, listening. Nothing. Only the soft voice of the wind across the open plain, and her heart pounding in her ears.

Thus encouraged, she ventured to peer out. With a blood-freezing snarl, the lion cleared the entire length of the crevasse in one leap and struck the ground before her like a meteor. Its mane of tentacles coiled and thrashed about its titanic head, and it gave a low, guttural rumble as it bent down over her.

“No! Noooo!” she screamed, her tiny, high-pitched voice piercing the air and echoing through the desolate valley.

The lion took no heed of the entreaty. The golden mask spread apart to reveal its nightmare maw, and it plucked up the little girl in its massive jaws.

“No! No fair! You cheated!!” she squeaked, kicking ineffectually against its inexorable strength, as she was lifted off her feet. “Put me down! Put me down!”

The lion snorted and huffed, blowing her hair into her face, but it had no intention of loosing its prey. With another spectacular leap, it bounded off in the direction from which she’d been running, holding her fast by the back of her grey frock, like a mother cat carrying an erring kitten.

When, in a very few minutes, the lion arrived at its intended destination, its fuming charge was still twisting and flailing her arms, boisterously repeating her demands to be put down. This time, her captor obliged her, depositing her gently on the smooth, black sand. The girl wheeled around and put her little hands on her hips, facing down the towering mountain of death with the light of battle in her green eyes.

“You’re not nice!” she shouted up at the beast. “I’m telling papa you cheated!”

The lion gave another snort and tossed its writhing mane.

“No, _you’re_ gonna be in trouble!”

“Alright, what’s goin’ on out here,” a smooth, sonorous voice said behind the girl. “What’s all the hollerin’ about?”

“He cheated!” the indignant child announced, pivoting to face the tall, black-clad man, and fiercely pointing a finger up at her much larger foe. “He’s not opposed to look where I’m going! That’s the rules!”

“Supposed, Louise. Not opposed,” the man said patiently, concealing a smile behind his gold, skull-shaped mask. “And you’re not _supposed_ to run off without tellin’ anybody. If you got caught, it’s your own fault.”

“But he cheeeeeaaated,” Louise argued, as she was scooped up in the man’s arms.

“He’s just lookin’ out for you, baby girl. Don’t you give him sass for doin’ as he’s told.”

Louise briefly considered pouting some more, but thought the better of maintaining her position against this particular opponent.

She sighed dolefully. “Yes, papa.”

“That’s my girl. Now, say you’re sorry.”

The defeated little combatant hung her curly head backward like a ragdoll to look at the lion upside-down. “Sorry, Gabriel.”

Apparently satisfied with the conciliatory gesture, the lion sat down on its immense haunches and yawned.

“Look at that, your dress is all dirty,” the man chided, as he carried the girl toward a low, grey structure a few yards away. “You’re gonna have to change before your daddy gets home.”

“No, I like this dress! I’m not dirty, see?”

“Louise, you are gettin’ more mud on than off with those filthy hands. What were you doin’ running off like that, anyway?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged, looking down to fiddle with a buckle on his chest armor. “I got bored.”

“Well, I hope you got it all out of your system. You’re gonna have to learn to act like a lady now you’re turnin’ seven.”

“Nooooooooo I don’t wanna be a laaaadyyyyy,” Louise intoned, going limp in his arms after the manner of a beset stage-heroine.

“Oh you don’t, do ya?” he laughed. “What do you want to be? A mean old man, like me?”

“Yeah!” she said, brightening up instantly. “And I want a gold mask just like yours and I want to cut the BTs loose and help the Bridges idiots with you and daddy.”

“I think you’ve got a bit more growin’ to do before you’re big enough for all that,” he said, as he set her on her feet inside the shelter. “Go on and wash up, you little rascal. And pick out another dress. Can’t have the birthday girl lookin’ like she lost a mud-wrestling match.”

“I wouldn’t lose!” she chirped, as she ran off toward her room.

The man stood watching her till she turned the corner, then laughed again. “Christ almighty, she’s just like her daddy. She’s just…just like…Sam…”

He swayed suddenly and grabbed the door frame to steady himself, blinking and shaking his head, but the dizzy, disorienting sensation only increased. His heart began to pound and his head buzzed, as tingling little sparks of pain shot through his limbs. He gasped for breath, trying in vain to tear off the mask that was suffocating him, but his gloved fingers were numb and useless.

“She’s just—she’s just like you,” he slurred, as his vision swam and went black. “Just like…”

“Hey, you’re ok,” Sam’s rough, earthy voice said, somewhere above him. “You’re ok, wake up.”

Higgs jolted suddenly into full awareness, panting and shaking from head to toe.

“Sam? Is everything ok?” he said half-frantically, craning his neck to look at the tank. “Is Lou ok?”

“She’s fine,” Sam said soothingly. “You were having a nightmare or something.”

“It wasn’t…it felt so…”

He stopped and looked about him, breathing deeply and attempting to coax his heart-rate back to normal. He was lying on his back in the safehouse bed, and Sam was propped up on an elbow beside him. It was dark, but for the orange glow of Lou’s tank, which threw off just enough illumination to reveal the frown of concern on Sam’s face.

“Christ, it felt so real,” he said, passing a hand over his brow. “You ever have those dreams where you can’t tell you’re dreamin’ till you wake up?”

“Only all the time for my entire life,” Sam smirked. “Heartman says it’s the chiralium in everything. Gives people vivid dreams and nightmares. Especially DOOMs people.”

“How lucky for us.”

“You want to tell me about it? Might help.”

“Nah, I’m alright. Trying to explain a dream out loud…it wouldn’t make sense anyway, y’know?”

“Trust me, I know,” Sam chuckled, lying back down and wrapping an arm around him.

Higgs lay staring at Lou’s glowing tank, trying to keep the details of the dream clear in his mind, but the more he grasped at them, the more quickly they slipped away. At last, he gave up the futile pursuit. The feeling of it lingered, nagging at the back of his mind, but the dream was gone, relegated to the oblivion of the subconscious, where all such ethereal fancies are laid to rest.

He sighed and reached up to stroke Sam’s shaggy hair, wondering idly if he’d ever get used to this. Feeling Sam’s warm, solid body pressed close to his own. The weight of his arm across his chest. The heat of his breath on his neck. The steady rise and fall of his ribcage and the regular rhythm of his heartbeat. The closest two humans could get without being physically inside each other.

This thought made his face flush suddenly, as if Sam might somehow be alerted to what was passing in his mind. He attempted to think about something else, but try as he might, his thoughts would wander back to it.

What would it be like, to let Sam all the way in? Let him breach the last physical barrier between them, push himself inside…his stomach flipped and his pulse sped almost imperceptibly. Partly from anxiety at the idea, but partly from a kind of wild, reckless desire for that very thing.

His entire life, he’d been utterly numb to any kind of physical attraction, and he had always been repulsed by the idea of sex—that ugly, animal thing for which human beings no longer had any use, now that there were far more sanitary and efficient methods of fertilizing ova with genetically suitable sperm and thus proliferating the species.

But now…now his dick was swelling and straining against his underclothes at the thought of being penetrated by Sam. His body ached to feel Sam’s bare skin on his, to hear his name spoken breathlessly, in a voice hoarse with desire. To be held down by those strong, calloused hands, spread open and _fucked_. To feel Sam’s hard cock throbbing when he came inside him. And for no other purpose than taking pleasure from the closeness of one other’s bodies.

As alluring as the image was, these feelings were new and distressing to him, and he had literally no idea what to do but suffer in silence. How do you ask your former nemesis turned…whatever Sam was now…to fuck you? What if you’d never been touched that way by another person and would require no small amount of instruction on the proper procedure? What if you failed and it was an utter disaster?

No word had ever been spoken between them in this vein, but Sam had seemed to be fully aware of Higgs’ ostensible asexuality from the beginning. Higgs had assumed Sam was the same, at first. He had since become aware of Sam’s (very obvious) physical response when they kissed lying in bed like this sometimes. But Sam had always eased off immediately and they’d gone chastely to sleep. He had never made any attempt to approach that boundary, let alone pass it.

Of course, now that he was keenly, painfully aware of this growing desire, Higgs found himself in doubt as to whether Sam was even interested in sex in the first place. One can have a physical response without caring to act upon it. And if Sam were actually desirous of following his hard-ons to their natural conclusion and making a dishonest man of his vestal lover, then he must be the most stoic, iron-willed motherfucker on the planet. So logically, Higgs must conclude that Sam was not inclined toward the physical act of love.

But Sam had been married. And he’d been at least sexually active enough to conceive a child with his espoused, though the pregnancy had ended about as badly as a pregnancy could end. For mother, father, child, and thousands of other unsuspecting human beings.

The death toll in that voidout had been catastrophic, and the resulting public outcry had driven Sam into exile for years. Self-imposed, since no such demand was ever made. He had gone away quietly and vanished from all human knowledge. He’d even been able to hide himself from the sight of the DOOMed, which must have required an incredible act of will.

Higgs recoiled from these painful thoughts and turned back to his more immediate concerns. Maybe…maybe Sam simply wasn’t interested in having sex with _him_. He’d been married to a woman, after all. Maybe he preferred the charms of the feminine body. He made a disgusted little grimace, then paused, considering what that kneejerk reaction said about himself.

As strongly as he’d felt his attachment to Fragile, he’d never touched her more than to take her hand in his. He’d never even thought of kissing her, and the idea of being physically intimate with her would have repulsed him. Not that he was blind to her beauty or found her personally objectionable in any way—quite the opposite. He’d simply had the same response to the idea of sex with her as he’d always had to the reproductive act. The sex act, rather, because it wasn’t the fact of her femaleness that repelled him. In general, he was far more disgusted by men than women.

So why was it different with Sam? Could it really be true that a powerful emotional connection could have such a significant impact on sexual desire? If so, that might be enough of an explanation by itself. The tether that bound them to one another was literally holding the world together. It was not unimaginable that the strength of such a connection would be more than adequate to pierce his own internal armor.

He was drifting off amid these meditations, when Sam stirred in his sleep and tightened his arm around him. As he did so, his hard cock dug into Higgs’ hip through their pants, derailing his train of thought and sending all his blood rushing south again.

“God fuckin’ damn it,” he muttered, shifting to adjust…a problem that had arisen. “He’s tryin’ to kill me, after all.”

“Hm? What?” Sam lifted his head and blinked at him through heavy, half-closed eyes.

“Nothin’,” Higgs said irritably. “Go back to sleep.”

“Love you,” Sam murmured, unconscious the moment the words were out of his mouth.

Higgs pressed a kiss to his forehead, then dropped his head back onto his pillow with a sigh. “I love you too, you old asshole.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Fragile said. “What do you mean?”

She glanced at Heartman, then back at the floating display before them. The numbers and abbreviations flickering on the screen meant very little to her, except that they seemed to reference various factors contributing to her overall physical condition.

“I mean you are in excellent health,” Heartman repeated, in his eager, affable way. “Better than most people nowadays, I’d wager.”

“I know I’m not sick. What I want to know is…I want to know how long I have left to live.

“I can’t tell you that with any certainty, of course, but I see no reason you should not live a long, healthy life.”

Fragile shook her head, unable to grasp what he was saying. “But the timefall…”

“Ah, yes,” he said, finally understanding her difficulty. “I apologize. I thought you understood. Aside from the loss of dermal elasticity and subcutaneous fat, and other superficial symptoms of aging, the effect of your timefall exposure was very limited. Since the dermal layers are only semi-permeable, the impact on the rest of your body was negligible.”

“You are saying that it…all it did was make me old on the outside.”

“That’s correct,” he nodded. “We don’t understand why timefall works the way it does, but once it has made contact with other substances, it essentially transforms into ordinary water. In order for the exposure to effect you internally, you would have had to ingest a large quantity of it before it came into contact with anything else.”

“So then, I won’t die sooner than I would have.”

“Not a moment sooner. All of your systems—respiratory, cardiac, reproductive, endocrine—everything is in excellent order.”

“I see,” she said. “Thank you, doctor.”

“I’m only happy I was able to give you good news,” he smiled, stepping over to switch off the display. Then he paused, observing the troubled expression on her face. “That is…I hope it is good news.”

A tear rolled down her pale cheek, but her expression remained firm and unreadable. She crossed her arms and stood gazing out the massive, floor-to-ceiling window. Heartman stood quietly beside her, looking out over the snow-clad peaks of the mountains, giving her space to speak, should she choose to do so.

“I was so vain when I was young,” she said at last, almost to herself. “My father always told me what a beautiful woman I was becoming, and I believed him. It was true. But he saw me becoming proud and careless, too. One day he told me, ‘You are beautiful, but don’t ever let that be all you are. When I am gone, all of this will belong to you, and to your own daughter after you. Remember your family and your name. It will be your duty to act wisely and live honorably.’ Family was so important to him—to us. I never wanted to be a mother for my own sake, but for my family, to have children to carry on our name, that was everything to me. Now…there is no hope.”

“But, Fragile,” Heartman ventured cautiously. “You are a perfectly healthy young woman. Far too young to give up hope of finding someone to share your life with. Look at me, for example. Against all odds, living the way I do, even I found someone. You will too, I’m sure of it.”

“There was someone, once. But that was a terrible mistake. There will be no one else for me.”

He frowned sympathetically. “What happened?”

“He asked me to marry him. But…children were not part of his plan.” She hugged herself more tightly, still looking down upon the black surface of the lake far below. “He wouldn’t even touch me, in fact. He said he couldn’t and never would, so I refused him. Then he did this to me. Made me ugly, so no other man would ever touch me, either.”

Heartman’s face went rather grey and he swallowed hard. “It was…it was Higgs? He asked you to—”

“He never wanted me,” she interrupted. “He wanted what my father’s empire could do for him. I trusted him and he betrayed me. So you see why I cannot trust myself to choose a partner. Not that anyone would take me, now.”

“That’s simply not true, my dear,” he said earnestly. “You are beautiful inside and out, and anyone you chose would be honored to have you. But if you feel strongly that your condition is a hindrance, there are many options. With a suitable genetic match, there is no reason you should not be able to have children.”

“No, doctor. A child needs more than a suitable genetic pairing, it needs a family. I know it must sound silly and old-fashioned to you, but that is what I believe. Since I won’t raise a child without a partner, I will have no child. My family line will die with me.”

He shook his head, pausing to let a tremor of emotion pass before he spoke. “It breaks my heart, to see you this way. I wish…I wish I could do something to help.”

“I will be alright,” she said, smiling bravely. “I don’t break so easy.”

Heartman took her hand and squeezed it. She returned the pressure gratefully, then withdrew her hand and vanished in a shimmer of black particles.


	11. The Severed Bond

Just after sunset one evening, Fragile materialized in the entryway of her home, a spacious penthouse atop the Fragile Express building in Lake Knot. The place was far too big for her, but it had been her family’s home and she wouldn’t think of living anywhere else. Empty and lonely as it may be.

She required little in the way of domestic staff, since she lived alone and kept no company—just a maid who came in a few times a week and kept the place immaculate and dust-free—and she never ate at the penthouse. She rarely ate at all, since the cryptobiotes supplied everything she needed nutritionally, and meals were something to be shared, not taken alone in one’s enormous, silent home.

She hung up her umbrella and went to her room to strip out of her coat and leggings, then padded to the bathroom in her white tank top and underwear. She still felt a little brazen doing this, but it was her house, now, and there was no one to object to such indecency.

She looked at her face in the mirror, studiously ignoring everything from her neck downward, as she brushed her teeth. When she was finished, she rinsed the toothbrush and replaced it in the holder, then switched the faucet to warm and bent down to wash her face.

This was her favorite personal ritual, and she took her time, cupping the hot water in her hands and breathing deeply, letting the gentle heat soothe her inside and out. She shut off the water and lifted her head to see Higgs, black-clad and golden masked, towering in the mirror behind her.

She tried to whip around, heart pounding with adrenaline, but he’d already caught her in a headlock and got his other arm around her waist. She kicked out with both legs and pushed off from the cabinet, hoping to throw him off balance, but he simply stepped back a pace and held her off the ground, where she could get no leverage.

“Let go of me!” she growled, clawing his arm and kicking at his shins with her bare feet. “How dare you come into—”

The words were strangled in her throat as he tightened his hold around her neck.

“Sh sh sh, hush,” he said, in that soft, taunting voice that drove her half-mad with rage. “I know you’re not happy to see me, but don’t worry. I’m not offended.”

He released the pressure from her windpipe and she took a gasping breath.

“What the fuck do you want!”

He tilted his head to the side. “You and I have some…unfinished business.”

She could see his blue eyes behind the VOG mask lenses, looking down at her ruined body in the mirror. Her vision nearly went red and she thrashed with redoubled energy, but it was all to no effect. He was as immovable as stone.

“Get out,” she snarled through her teeth. “Get out of my house, you bastard!”

The arm around her waist loosened, and for a brief second, she almost thought he might let her go. But he held her fast in the headlock and reached up to pull off the gold skull mask. Before she could think to react, he clamped the thing over the lower half of her face. Searing, electrifying pain coursed through her skin and into her very bones. She screamed inside the mask, unable to stop herself, as her body jerked spasmodically.

The last thing she saw was a tar tear spilling over the black-lined rim of his eye, then she went slack in his arms, dead to the world.

A nightmare, perhaps, or a horrific vision.

Some past that had been or future yet to come.

The world on fire.

Dead, black things falling like rain from the blood-red sky.

Strands like hideous spider’s webs stretching out across the burning oceans, a net of death from which no living thing escaped.

At the center of the web, the spider.

A tall, thin woman in a black dress, her face covered by a golden mask, shaped like a skull.

Fragile emerged slowly into consciousness, like a deep-sea diver surfacing gradually to avoid the risk of embolism. She was cold and sick to her very core, her fevered mind reeling with these terrible visions. After a moment or two, however, the red fire faded and her eyes focused on the white ceiling above her.

What the fuck was she doing on the bathroom floor? She struggled up to a sitting position, blinking blearily about, then the entire scene rushed back into her mind at once.

Higgs appearing and grabbing her, holding his mask on her face, the pain…then she’d blacked out. What had happened to him, then? He was lying facedown a few feet away, with both his masks on the floor beside him.

She was still staring at him dazedly, trying to comprehend the situation, when he pushed himself up onto all fours and turned to look at her.

“What the fuck!” she gasped, backing up against the side of the bathtub.

His eyes were completely black—pupil, iris, sclera and all—and his face was smeared with thick tar tears. His dark-brown hair was streaked through with silver, as though he’d aged decades in a moment, and there were white hypopigmentation spots all over his skin.

“Cost of…doin’ business,” he rasped. “I apologize for this—”

He turned and retched violently, his body racking as he vomited ink-black fluid all over the white tiles of her bathroom floor. She jumped to her feet and stepped backward to avoid being spattered by it, and doing so, caught sight of herself in the mirror.

She stopped and stared in breathless disbelief. The sagging, spotted, wrinkled hide was gone. Simply gone. As if a garment had been stripped away and her fresh, milky-white skin had been beneath it all along. Smooth and taut, and bearing no sign of age. Flawless. Like it had been, before…

Higgs rolled heavily onto his back and lay there panting, watching her look at herself. His eyes had returned to their usual bright blue and the white spots on his face were already fading.

She wheeled around and looked down at him, baring her teeth. “What the fuck did you do! Why did you do this to me!”

“I told you. Unfinished business.”

“You think this is the unfinished business between us?” she demanded. “You think this is the worst thing you did to me!?”

“No,” he said weakly, letting his head drop back onto the floor. “It was the one I could fix.”

“This doesn’t fix anything!”

She took two rapid steps and dealt a savage kick to his ribs. He gave a hoarse cry and rolled over, attempting to get to his feet, but she dealt another sharp kick to his stomach, which knocked the wind out of him. He collapsed back onto the floor and received several more kicks, punctuating each volley of words.

“You ruined my life! My father’s name! You killed thousands of people! You made the world think I was a monster! You fucking piece of shit!!”

“I know,” he gasped, clutching his battered midsection protectively. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t fucking forgive you! You think you can just come here and make a petty little gesture like this and it will erase what you are? How you made me suffer?”

“No, please, I—I don’t.” He held up a hand as if to entreat for mercy, and she stayed her readied blow for the moment. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I know what I am and what I’ve done.”

“Then why!” she said angrily, but with less of rabid fury in her eyes. “Why did you do this!”

He stared at her for a beat, then shook his head, turning to gaze up at the ceiling. The hypopigmented spots had vanished entirely from his skin, and the white streaks were fading from his hair, returning it to its natural, dark-brown shade.

His hair had grown a bit, since she’d seen him last. A little less clean-cut. Shaggier around the edges. More suited to his rugged, quasi-military style of dress. His facial hair seemed thicker and denser, too, which gave a more mature, sturdy cast to his face. He didn’t look older, but he had changed. Not aged so much as…grown into himself.

She would almost have thought him handsome at that moment, were he not lying in a puddle of black sludge that he had just vomited all over her bathroom floor, after intruding into her home and knocking her unconscious.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said icily. “I will never forgive you. I hate you.”

He nodded. “That’s fair. I earned your hate, and I accept it.”

“Don’t try that Zen bullshit with me. It’s so easy to say you accept it and leave it all on me, like it’s my fault if I choose not to forgive you. The truth is, you never gave a damn if I hated you or not, as long as you got what you wanted.”

“I did get what I wanted,” he murmured, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. He laid a hand on his chest, as if feeling the sting of an old wound. “She opened me up and tore that strand right out of me. Almost killed me. But I was rid of you. Don’t know if the price I paid was worth it, in the end.”

“You can spare me the severed bond bullshit, too,” she spat. “You never loved me.”

“I did,” he said. “I loved you as much as I was capable of it. You loved me, too. That’s why you hate me so much now.”

Fragile threw her hands up in exasperation. “I hate you because you’re a fucking psychotic mass-murderer, Higgs! You fucking…narcissist asshole!”

“I am that,” he agreed. “I certainly was psychotic mass-murderer, too. I was everything you almost fooled yourself into believing I wasn’t. And you did love me. You let me in and let me betray you. You can’t forgive me for that. You can’t forgive yourself, either.”

“Fuck you,” she hissed. “Get the fuck out of my fucking house.”

“I’d really like to, darlin’,” he said, looking up at her with a wince. “Thing is, it took pretty much everything I had to get all that death off you and…well, I can’t exactly get up.”

“You are such a fucking liar,” she retorted. “I know it was only my skin that was aged. How much trouble could that have been?”

“Years are years,” he shrugged. “Time ain’t an easy thing to trade. I had to give you a fuckload of mine to make up the cost.”

She eyed him doubtfully. “You look alright to me.”

“Beauty of bein’ damned to eternal life,” he said, with a feeble attempt at a smile. “I have all the time in the world. Only, I do have to let the battery recharge now and then.”

“So, it’s true. You and Sam are going to be young forever.”

“I will. Sam’s already old as dirt. You know that motherfucker is fifty?”

“Jesus Christ,” she sighed, turning toward the door. “I am not gossiping with you about your fucking boyfriend. We are not friends, Higgs.”

“Where you goin’?” he called after her. “Wait, what the fuck do you mean, boyfriend!”

Sam was leaning on the wall, idly rocking Lou’s tank in its port and munching on a slice of cold pizza, when Fragile appeared in the safehouse, with the accompanying rush of air and black particles. This wouldn’t have been extremely unusual, except for the fact that she had Higgs with her, and was supporting him with her arm around his waist and one of his slung over her shoulder. Sam stood blinking for a moment, trying to parse what he wasn’t sure he was really seeing.

“Hi, Sam. I believe this belongs to you,” Fragile said, letting go of Higgs, who collapsed onto the floor with a heavy thud.

“Ow,” Higgs said, from somewhere in the vicinity of her black boots.

“Jesus, what happened to him?” Sam exclaimed, hurrying to his side.

“I am sure he can explain that to you himself,” Fragile replied archly. She stood watching as Sam dragged Higgs up and deposited him on the safehouse bed. “He was trespassing in Lake Knot. He’s lucky I didn’t report him.”

“Report me all you want,” Higgs slurred. “They can’t do shit to me.”

“Are you drunk?” Sam frowned, then looked at Fragile. “Is he drunk?”

She shook her head. “No, he’s just a pain in the ass.”

“I could be both,” Higgs offered. “We have any beer?”

“Everything’s ok, though?” Sam asked, ignoring him. “He didn’t hurt anyone, did he?”

“No,” she said, her eyes flickering over Higgs, then back to Sam. “He didn’t hurt anyone.”

Sam would have asked what he had been doing in the city, but he knew instinctively when something was none of his business and backed judiciously away from that thread of conversation.

“Thanks for bringing him home, Fragile,” he said. “I owe you one.”

“It was nothing. But you might want to explain trespassing to him, since he doesn’t seem to understand it. Oh, and he doesn’t understand why I called you his boyfriend. You should probably explain that to him, too. Bye, Sam.”

Before he could return the goodbye, Fragile shimmered out of the material plane, leaving Sam to see to his supine companion on his own. He sat on the bed and lifted Higgs’ hand, peeling off a black and gold glove.

“I don’t have any fuckin’ boyfriend,” Higgs was mumbling, half coherently. “The fuck do I want boy friends for? Nothin’. I don’t even want man friends. Or woman friends.”

“You know that doesn’t mean a boy who is your friend, right?” Sam smirked, as he pulled off the other glove.

“I don’t know shit about shit,” Higgs proclaimed. “Boyfriend don’t mean boy friend and words just mean any old fuckin’ thing people want.”

“Well, I wouldn’t use the word, since I’m not fourteen, but I do think boyfriend pretty much covers what we are.”

“How’s that?” Higgs asked drowsily, as Sam pulled off his boot.

“It means a male companion with whom one has a romantic or sexual relationship,” Sam said, dropping the second boot on the floor.

Higgs’ eyes fluttered open. “But we don’t have…a romantic or sexual relationship. Do we?”

“I think so,” Sam shrugged. “I love you and I don’t want to be with anyone else. That’s romantic.”

“I thought romantic meant like, violins and flowers and shit,” Higgs said, bewildered.

“No, it just means not platonic. More than friends.”

“You don’t want to be with anyone else?”

“No. Do you?”

“Fuck no, people are disgusting. Except you. You’re alright.”

“Thanks,” Sam laughed. “Sit up. I’ll help you take all this gear off.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Higgs said distractedly. He waved his hand and his body armor and protective gear disintegrated, leaving him in his grey thermal undershirt and black trousers. “So, we have a relationship. And it’s…romantic.”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s not…we don’t…” his face flushed and he trailed off awkwardly.

“You mean we don’t have sex,” Sam assisted.

“Yes. That.”

“We don’t need to have sex to be in a romantic relationship.”

“We don’t?”

“No, of course not.”

“But it’s the…usual kind of thing, right?”

“We’re not the usual kind of people.”

Higgs shifted uneasily. “And you don’t need…that kind of thing?”

“I don’t need that to want to be with you,” Sam said, taking his hand and kissing it. “I told you, I just want to be close to you. That’s enough for me.”

“Oh,” Higgs said miserably, not knowing what else to say.

“Higgs, I knew how you were when this started. I swear, it’s not a problem. I love you exactly the way you are.”

“The way I am?”

“I mean how you’re…you know. Asexual.”

“I’m not, though,” Higgs blurted out, unable to stand this any longer. “I mean, I was and you weren’t wrong, but I don’t—I don’t think I am anymore. I don’t fuckin’ know if that’s even possible, but I feel like…something changed. Does that even make sense?”

Sam looked away, shaking his head, then laughed aloud. “Christ. I can’t believe this.”

“What’s so funny? Can’t believe what?”

“You have no idea how much sense it makes to me. I just feel like a fucking idiot for not seeing it.”

Higgs gestured impatiently. “Well? Any chance you’d like to enlighten me?”

“I was the exact same way. I had the aphenphosmphobia thing and I was totally asexual, and then…I met someone and we connected. Then it changed. Lucy was my only one, though. When she died, the aphenphosmphobia came right back and I never experienced sexual attraction again. Till I met you.”

“You never—hang on, till you _met_ me? You mean when we met again, after everything.”

“No, I mean when I met you. In Port Knot, when you did all that dramatic shit with the floating rocks and said you were the particle of god or whatever.”

“In Port Knot when—you didn’t even see my face! And I set a catcher on you!”

“I didn’t need to see your face, it just…happened.”

“Jesus. There really is some shit seriously wrong with you, isn’t there.”

“You have no idea,” Sam laughed. “I know how insane it was. That whole time you were sending catchers and hunters to kill me and making your big villain speeches, I was just…so fucked. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I thought I was losing my fucking mind.”

“I think maybe you were,” Higgs frowned. “I stuck a nuclear bomb to you.”

“Yeah, but you did that because you wanted my attention.”

“Fuck’s sake, Sam,” Higgs sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Does a person normally use a nuclear weapon as a method of getting another person’s attention? Or was it exactly what it appeared to be, which was a fucking bomb!”

“You do. I didn’t say anything about normal.”

“This is un-fucking-believable. I tried to blow you up and kill everyone in South Knot and you think it was a cry for attention.”

“Cause it was. And you weren’t really trying to kill anyone.”

Higgs raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“If you wanted to blow me up and take a city down with me, you would’ve concealed the bomb better and set it to go off as soon as I got there. Instead, you stuck a note to it and put it on a long-ass countdown timer. You basically made sure I had time to get it to the tar lake before it went off. I didn’t even have to hurry.”

“That’s ridiculous. And you’re wrong.”

“I’m not. You have voided me out, sent all kinds of monsters to chase me around, and shot me, like…a lot of times. But you were never trying to kill me. Not the real, no coming back way.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. There isn’t a real, no coming back way for you.”

“There was. You had a chance to do it. You didn’t take it.”

“I tried to take it. I failed. You beat me.”

“Right,” Sam snorted. “Your gun magically stopped working and you had no choice but to fight it out hand to hand. Give me a break, Higgs.”

“I ran out of fucking bullets, Sam.”

“You had bullets left to shoot yourself.”

“Well…the whole thing is kinda hazy. Maybe you were hard to aim at and I thought the knife was a surer bet.”

“Yeah, cause I’m so fast and fuckin’ wily. Or—let me guess—you got sand in your eyes.”

“Y’know, if you want to have a rematch right now, I think I could do better.”

“I know you could. Getting shot fucking hurts, though, so no thanks.”

“Not when it’s in the head,” Higgs muttered, passing a hand over his brow.

“Look, I’m not trying to bust your balls about this, I’m just trying to get you to admit you didn’t really want to end me permanently.”

“No, I wanted to,” Higgs said slowly. “I tried to. I just…couldn’t.”

“I do believe that,” Sam conceded. “I couldn’t have killed you, either. Even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t.”

“Bullshit. I tormented you, Sam. I made your life a living hell.”

“You made things difficult, but not a living hell.”

“And you weren’t angry about all the shit I did?”

“No. Not once I figured out who was pulling your strings. But even when I thought you were the big-bad, I didn’t want you any less. I fell in love with you that first time we met.”

“I…I don’t—Jesus Christ, this is idiotic. I was in love with you, too.”

Sam smiled. “You were?”

“Yes. Don’t look so fuckin’ happy about it, you ruined everything. I had to fight you, so I did. It was my entire purpose on this earth. To oppose you and see the extinction through. But the truth is, I hated hurting you. I fuckin’ hated it. And I really enjoy hurting people.”

“Do you?”

“Oh, no you don’t, I know that look. You’re tryin’ to psychoanalyze me again.”

“No I’m not, I’m asking a question. Do you enjoy hurting people?”

“Yes! I mean…I did. I don’t know if I do now because you won’t let me.”

“Riiiiight, I won’t let you. I forgot I was so powerful. You know what’s weird, though, is I can’t seem to stop you from doing anything else you want to do. Like fucking off to major cities and leaving your cuffs here.”

“I had a loose end to tie up. I don’t have to explain every little thing I do to you.”

“I know, and I don’t expect you to. I trust you.”

“You—what? Why?”

“Because when you love someone, you trust them. Especially your boyfriend.”

“I swear, I will cut your throat while you sleep.”

“I’ll come back and cut yours,” Sam said, leaning down to kiss him.

“So,” Higgs said, when Sam drew away. “About that sexual relationship thing…”

“Don’t stress about that. Let’s just take it slow, ok?”

“But, Sam—”

“I’m serious. We have time. I’m not willing to rush something that important.”

“Fine with me,” Higgs grumbled. “I don’t even want to fuck you anyway. You’re…old.”

“I know,” Sam smiled, settling in beside him and pulling him close. “I love you, too.”


	12. Once in a Long, Long While

  
Towers of ice rose like ragged teeth from the black ocean, where they creaked and cracked with each swell and lull of its surface. The waves broke and dispersed into foam across the slate-colored sand, drawing back to rise and fall and break again, performing the steps of their endless dance with the serene forbearance of infinity.

At the shoreline, an old man stood, gazing out over the timeless sea. Though years had stripped the mane from his hoary head, gnarled his hands and mottled his skin, he stood unbowed, his thin, bony shoulders thrown back and his bald head held high. For he had lived a life upon which he could indeed look back with well-earned pride.

He had lived honestly and simply. Kept his own by the labor of his hands, and shared generously with others from what bounty nature bestowed. He had given much and taken little, loved and lost and suffered the sling and arrows of fortune without bitterness of heart. Though he had done no great deed of heroism, nor fought valiantly in any war, he would take his place among his fathers unashamed.

Amid his meditations, and out of place among the rhythmic thunder of the waves, there came a noise like a brief roaring, tear. An unnatural sound, which announced by its very character that some physical law had been disregarded.

With the sound a figure appeared, flickering briefly with red flame, before it resolved into the shape of a man, tall and armored, and cloaked in black and gold. The soles of his heavy boots left perfectly formed indentations in the firm-packed sand, as he strode up to meet the old man.

“Pete the porter,” the old man said, without turning. “How kind of you to come and see me again.”

“Elder,” Higgs replied, stopping to stand a pace or two to his left.

“I was…in pain. Alone in the dark,” he said slowly, in his rough, weathered voice. “And then I found myself here. Where am I?”

“The Beach.”

“Ah, yes. I have heard people speak of this Beach. This gateway between the two worlds. Only, it is a one-way gate for me, is it not.”

Higgs made no reply, and the old man didn’t seem to have expected any. He lifted his head and breathed deeply of the cold, clean air, spreading his hands to feel the breeze play through his fingers. He slid them into his trousers pockets and cast a sidelong glance at Higgs, then returned his eyes to the sea, as if compelled by some desire he could not resist. 

“You know, I often wondered what had become of that frightened little boy, who I found hiding under my water tank.”

“You were kind to me. I should have thanked you.”

“Pah, there is no need for that,” the old man said, waving this away. “I only gave you some food and a place to get out of the rain for a while. It was nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done.”

“I doubt that very much, Elder.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. Life has taught me otherwise.”

“The chances of my life were gentle, perhaps. Yours…they must have been hard, to have made you what you were.”

“Do you regret what you did for me, now that you know what I became?”

“No, of course not. I doubt very much that eating my toast and jam had much influence on you, one way or the other. It is only a strange thing to think of. That the skinny little boy and the man in the golden mask were one in the same, all along.”

Higgs stood silent, having no answer to give, and as before, none seemed to be desired.

“Well, you know what they say about entertaining angels unaware,” the old man said, with a throaty chuckle. “Or devils, for that matter. But which one are you, I wonder.”

Higgs shook his head. “I’m neither. I’m just a man, same as you.”

“Ah, but if you are a man, the same as me, how have you come here?” the old man asked, with a twinkle in his eye. “Perhaps you are only a hallucination, brought on by neurons firing at random as my brain dies.”

“Your brain died with your body. When your flesh necrotized, I felt the birth of your BT. I came to see that you don’t suffer.”

“That is very kind of you. But I was only making a little joke. I know what you are.”

“What am I, Elder?” Higgs asked, looking down into his wrinkled, kindly face.

“You are death,” the old man said simply. “I felt it that day you came with Sam’s delivery for me. I didn’t recognize you then, but…everything is clearer, here.”

“You’re not afraid of me,” Higgs said, not as a question, but as stated fact.

“No,” the old man replied, with a sigh. “I have been waiting for you for a long time. Such a long time.”

The sudden weight of weariness in his ancient voice, freighted as it was with the cares and sorrows of a lifetime, cut Higgs to the quick, and an unwonted upwelling of compassion flowed like blood and water from the wound. He reached out, as if to touch the old man’s shoulder, but caught himself and drew his gloved hand back into his cloak. The old man’s gaze was fixed on the horizon, and he saw nothing of the abortive gesture, nor the hastily blinked-back tear in his companion’s eye.

“Can you see it?” he asked. “The other side?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated, then turned almost fearfully to look up into his face. For a long moment, no word passed between them. Then the old man took the young man’s strong, steady hand in his own, stiff and knotted with age, and pressed it.

“It’s time,” he said, turning his eyes once more to the sea. “I am ready.”

In a small, cozy room, in the material world, tidily kept but rather cramped with various knickknacks and mismatched pieces of antique furniture, a black-gloved hand drew out a curved, gold-bladed knife. With a skillful flick of the wrist, an ugly, writhing, grey cord was severed.

At that moment, any living human who had happened to be in earshot would have heard a horrible, shrieking howl that chilled the very blood in their veins. But living ears are untrained to the frequencies of the other side, and can discern only horror in that which they cannot comprehend. To the one who did hear it, the cry was one of desperate suffering, giving way to exhilarated relief. Of the joy that pierces like a sword.

On the Beach, the old man’s eyes went wide. His creased lips parted, and a look of recognition spread over his weathered face.

“I hear them,” he breathed. “Do you hear them?”

“I hear them, Elder.”

“They are calling to me. They…they want me to come home. I must go,” he said, with sudden urgency, stepping into the water. Then he paused and turned back. “Will you say goodbye to Sam for me? And give him the package I left? I never got a chance.”

“I will.”

“Thank you,” the old man called back, lifting a hand in token of farewell, as he strode fearlessly out among the swelling waves. “Thank you, Pete! Goodbye!”

Higgs returned the gesture, raising his black-gloved hand, palm outward. “Goodbye, Elder.”

Long after the old man vanished from his sight, he stood as one carven from stone, staring out over the icy sea. In the dead, grey sky above him, five figures hung suspended, like black stars. Silent and eternal.

“Did you see?” Lockne asked drowsily, turning over to look at the digital clock on her night table.

I did.

“How did he handle it?”

Beautifully. I knew he would.

“I don’t understand how you knew what he was going to do, and I didn’t. I’m supposed to be smarter than you.”

He hides a lot of himself here. He can’t do that on the other side.

“That’s an unfair advantage!” Lockne said, with a little huff. “How can I hold up my end of the research if you can just go look at his soul whenever you want?”

Oh, shut up, you big baby. You have advantages, too.

“Like what?”

You can touch him. I can’t do that. There’s a lot of information that can be gathered through physical contact.

“Yeah, useful things like how much he hates being touched. Thanks, asshole, I’ll keep that in mind when I’m typing up the case study you got to do all the actual observation for.”

I could stay up all night typing for you, but you won’t let me, so suck it up, buttercup. Anyway, I’m not so sure he hates being touched.

“He did respond surprisingly well when we hugged him,” Lockne mused. “I kind of half expected him to stab me.”

Pfft. Whatever. You’re way too pretty for that.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I mean, he wouldn’t stab a work of art, would he?

“I don’t know, he fucked Fragile up and she’s like…Birth of Venus beautiful.”

That’s true. No one’s as beautiful as you, though.

“Aw, thank you, sweetie. Wait, why are you being sweet? What do you want?”

Nothing. Just…

“Just what. Spit it out.”

I just noticed you didn’t call James yet and I was wondering if you were gonna.

“I can’t believe this is what we’re talking about at four in the morning. No, I’m not going to call James.”

Why? He’s nice.

“He’s hairy.”

He’s not…that hairy.

“He looks like a mid-transition werewolf, honey.”

Oh god, he does. Oh god, now I can never unsee it.

“Yeah, and I don’t want hair all over the house. We don’t own a dog for a reason.”

You are so fucking picky. What about Minseo, in dev-tech. She’s cute and not hairy at all.

“She’s married.”

Still?

“Yep. They’re workin’ it out.”

Ugh, people are the worst. What is the world coming to?

“You mean when a girl can’t find a nice, unmarried, non-werewolf who’s ok with the whole ‘my dead sister lives in me’ thing?”

We can, though! I believe in us! Go team!

Lockne groaned, pulling her pillow over her head. “Why can’t you just let me accept my fate and marry my vibrator, like an adult?”

Human contact is crucial, babe, you know this. Especially for you. You get super cranky when you’re not getting any.

“I do not!”

Oh, yeah, cause it’s not like I’ve known you our whole lives or anything. Remind me, who called Amelie a scarecrow-looking bitch at the staff Christmas party that one year?

“That was you!”

Oh shit, that was me. Wow, even I get us mixed up.

“It’s ok. We always knew you were the dumb one.”

My IQ is literally one point below yours.

“Yep. A whole point. Lower.”

One point means nothing!

“Sure, whatever makes you feel better.”

That’s it. I’m gonna give you a haircut while you’re sleeping.

“Good luck with that. I’ll just hide all the scissors.”

You can’t hide things from me, I’m in your head. Who’s the dumb one, now?

Lockne bit her lip thoughtfully. “Hmm. Still you.”

Oh, I beg to differ. I know who you’ve been having sexy thoughts about, and you are _clearly_ the dumb one.

“I mean, we both were, so. You’ve proven nothing.”

I knowwwwww. Why are all the pretty ones psychotic mass-murderers?

“I guess that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. The man cookie. Statistically, there are far fewer female psychotic mass-murders.”

If you ever say ‘man cookie’ to me again, I am cutting myself loose and crossing over.

“Go ahead, bitch, maybe I’ll finally get some sleep.”

You’re the bitch, bitch!

“Ok, I really am going back to sleep now. Night, honey.”

Night. Love you.

A very few minutes later, their cufflinks chirped with an incoming transmission. Lockne was already fast asleep, so Målingen took over, touching the interface with Lockne’s finger to answer the call.

“Hey, Fragile,” she said, as the screen popped into view. “What’s up?”

“Hi, Målingen,” Fragile’s voice came back, uncharacteristically hoarse, as if with recent weeping. “Sorry to call at this hour, but I knew you’d be awake.”

“Don’t be sorry. We’re always happy to talk to you. Is anything wrong?”

“I…I don’t know,” Fragile sighed. “I feel like everything is wrong and it is all wrong with me. Maybe I am losing my mind.”

“You’re not losing your mind, I promise. This world is enough to make anyone feel crazy sometimes. I mean, you’re talking to a dead woman through her sister’s codec, so…whatever’s going on, I’m sure it’s not as weird as that.”

“Higgs came into my house. Does that qualify as weird?”

“Oh my god, what the fuck! Are you ok?”

“I’m ok. He appeared in my bathroom and scared the shit out of me, but he didn’t hurt me. I mean, he did hurt me, but it was…I don’t know, this is what is making me feel insane.”

“What did he do? What happened?”

“I can’t explain like this. Can I come over there?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll wake Lockne.”

“Thank you. I have to get dressed. I’ll be just a minute.”

Målingen woke her sister, who was briefly irritable at the further disruption of her rest, until the situation was quickly explained. When Fragile appeared a few minutes later, they were waiting for her with hot cups of butterfly flower tea steaming on the coffee table, beside a canister of pink, squeaking cryptobiotes.

She was paler than usual and her lovely, ice-blue eyes were puffier than could be excused by the chiral allergy tears from the jump. Lockne drew her in and embraced her, though she received the gesture rather stiffly, then they sat on the sofa together.

Fragile sipped her sapphire-hued tea in dull silence for a while, but they finally enticed her to take a few cryptobiotes, which seemed to wake her up, and returned some of the color to her cheeks.

“I wanted to talk to you, but I can’t make myself do it,” she said at last. “I feel alone. I feel abandoned by everyone I considered to be my friends. Even—even you two.”

Her voice choked with emotion and she looked down into her mug. A tear spilled from Lockne’s blue eye and rolled down her cheek.

“We’re so sorry,” she said. “We know this must seem cruel to you. But you have to believe us, there is no other way.”

“How can you say it must seem cruel to me?” Fragile asked, her jaw beginning to work angrily. “What he did to you was a thousand times worse than what he did to me. How can you stand to know he is alive and well and can do just as he pleases, and we can’t do anything to stop him?”

“For that very reason,” Lockne answered. “There’s nothing anyone can do. The decision was made and it can’t be undone.”

“We suffered, because of what he and the Demens did,” Målingen said. “But…we don’t think he’s responsible for most of it.”

“What do you mean? Of course he is,” Fragile frowned. “He was a murderer and a terrorist, long before the EE got a hold of him.”

“He was, but his DOOMs is partly to blame for that. It isn’t like yours. You’re connected to the other side, but you’re still mostly in this world. He isn’t. He’s almost halfway on the other side all the time, and when he’s exposed to a voidout or BTs and his power grows, he’s even further gone.”

“He’s a natural genius and he grew up isolated and abused, so he was mentally and emotionally conditioned to be a psychopath,” Lockne continued. “Then he killed his uncle in self-defense, and the voidout gave him all this new power. It also confirmed the worst things he feared about the world and himself.”

“The more time he spent on the other side, without human contact, the more he disconnected from life. Eventually, his connection to death was so strong that he became unable to empathize with the living at all. He started to see the living the way they see BTs. As matter out of place. Horrible, hungry creatures, always screaming in pain.”

“He says he liked killing people because it made him feel free, but his cognitive dissonance is extremely deep around that issue. We think it actually made him feel that he was setting _them_ free.”

“With his connection to the other side, and his mind already warped by psychosis, he was the perfect candidate for the EE to make into her executioner. She hooked him directly into her own power and pushed him over the edge, into hyper-fatalism. And he did what she intended. He tried to end all life on the planet.”

Fragile sat silent, listening to all of this, with her eyes on the steaming, sapphire-blue liquid in her mug. 

“What happened, Fragile?” Lockne asked gently. “When Higgs came to your house.”

Tears had begun rolling down her pale cheeks and splashing on the front of her black jacket as they spoke, and she dashed them away. “He grabbed me and put his mask on my face. I blacked out. But I had a dream, or—some kind of vision.”

“What did you see?” Målingen asked.

“The extinction. All of it. The things I saw…it felt so real and inescapable. I don’t know how, but I know it was what the EE showed him.” She paused and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I think you are right, and she got into his head and pushed him over the edge, but I can’t believe he wasn’t responsible for the things he did before that. You didn’t know him. I did. He was intelligent, capable, ambitious…he was even charming. That is not how madmen work.”

“No, but it is how psychopaths work,” Lockne said. “Fragile, I’m sorry to put it so bluntly but…Higgs is not evil. He’s extremely sick.”

“What is the cure, then?” Fragile asked bitterly. “Everyone forgives him and treats him like he didn’t do anything wrong? He never has to pay for what he’s done?”

“But he will,” Målingen answered. “That’s why he’s here. Why he can’t die.”

“His effective immortality isn’t a reward,” Lockne explained. “It’s what he will need to right the wrongs he’s done. To restore the balance between the two worlds.”

Fragile shook her head. “He is just as powerful as ever. If power and his connection to the other side makes him insane, what is to stop him finishing what he started, and destroying the rest of the world?”

“Sam,” they answered together.

“Sam,” Fragile said, taken aback. “What can Sam do? He can’t control Higgs. He can’t even stop him taking off his cuffs and breaking into my house.”

“It’s not going to make a whole lot of sense without context, but Sam is basically his tether to the world of the living,” Målingen said. “The more contact Higgs has with Sam, the more his psychosis will mitigate and…well, the more human he’ll become.”

“We’ve already seen a bit of the effect his connection with Sam has had on him,” Lockne added. “He came here, to answer some questions about his abilities. He was kind of upset about some things we told him, but our interaction was very positive, overall.”

“He let us hug him,” Målingen interjected. “And he didn’t try to kill Lockne. We think that’s a good sign.”

“The point is, he did listen to what we had to say. He’s still balanced very precariously between his deeply conflicting views of himself and his place in the universe, but we believe he can be guided in the right direction. We hope he can.”

Fragile stared off into the middle-distance, only appearing to have half-heard what they’d said. “At least he will pay for he what he’s done. He deserves to suffer for it forever.”

Lockne’s brow furrowed with concern. “You can’t really think that. Fragile, holding onto that rage, all that pain, it will only make you sick, too. It will eat you alive.”

“I have nothing else to live for,” Fragile replied numbly. “What does it matter?”

“Please don’t say that,” Målingen said, with a tremor in her voice. “Don’t give up, now, when there’s finally hope.”

“You’re one of us,” Lockne urged. “Connected to us all. Me and Målingen and Sam and Heartman and Deadman and Die-Hardman and you. We have a bond that no one else in the world could ever understand.”

“We’ve been through literal hell together and we succeeded because of you.”

“Not because of me,” Fragile said. “I only did my part, just like everyone else.”

“But that’s the point. None of us could have done it without each other. We need you. We love you.”

“I…I know,” Fragile said, blinking back more tears. “I love you, too. But all of this rage and pain as you call it, it was all I had to sustain me for so long. I don’t think I am ready to let it go. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

“Don’t try to force yourself,” Lockne said. “That’ll only make it worse.”

“Take all the time you need,” Målingen added. “But remember, we are here for you. Don’t do this alone.”

Fragile nodded, and they threw their arms around her. This time, she returned the embrace warmly, leaning in and letting her head rest on their shoulder. They pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then held her tightly and stroked her silky, pale-blonde hair, humming the melody of some song they couldn’t quite place, but which always seemed to be in the back of their mind.

“I think she’s asleep,” Målingen whispered, after some time had passed in silence.

“I don’t mind,” Lockne answered softly. “She’s been through a lot and she needs us. I can miss a little work today.”

“Aw, boo,” Målingen pouted. “You’re gonna fall asleep, too. You living people are so boring.”

“Go fuck off to the other side and spy on Higgs, then,” Lockne said, as she shifted into a more comfortable position, taking care not to wake Fragile. “I’m not moving till she does.”

“Fine, boring ass. I’ll be back later. Love you.”

“Love you, too, honey,” Lockne yawned. “Have fun.”


	13. Asylums for the Feeling

Higgs materialized at the crest of a blood-red hill, where he stood among the massive, volcanic boulders, watching. Waiting. At long last, the figure of another man came into view in the distance, dark blue and flashing silver. A Bridges jumpsuit and the sunlight reflecting from the many cargo containers he carried. Why would he load himself up like that to trudge across this rusted wasteland? He sure was taking his fucking time, too. Christ.

Still, Higgs observed his progress with unflagging attention, as if enthralled. The man in the dark-blue jumpsuit paused and mopped his brow, looking curiously about at the blasted landscape. He drew out a canteen and took a long draught of whatever was in it, then stowed it, squared his pack on his shoulders, and began again.

He was bearing east toward a prepper shelter, the last that lay in that direction, before the steep volcanic slopes and deadly gases spewing from deep crevices in the earth made the land too inhospitable for human inhabitants. Within fifteen minutes or so, he had reached the shelter and vanished inside. A few more minutes passed, then he reemerged, bearing fewer containers than before.

From the shelter’s entrance, he turned southward, slipping and stumbling along through the increasingly rough and treacherous terrain, amid large rocks that intermittently obscured him from view. At one point, he stopped again for some reason, and plumes of thick, white steam, rising from a natural hot spring hid him entirely, much to his observer’s annoyance.

When several minutes had passed and he still hadn’t reappeared, Higgs flickered out of the living world and back into it, closer this time, but still far enough to avoid being seen. He leaned out from behind a large, ragged boulder, then blinked in confusion and quickly ducked back behind it.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Sam,” he muttered, under his breath.

The man had dropped his cargo on the ground and was stripping off his clothes. What in the all-fired fuck was he doing, losing his mind? He waited a moment or two, then peered out again, unable to contain his curiosity. He barely caught himself before he laughed aloud. Sam was lounging in the hot spring. Actually lounging, with his BB pod floating around in front of him, like he was on fucking vacation.

“Stoppin’ to have a bath in the middle of the goddamned apocalypse,” Higgs chuckled to himself. “Sam Porter Bridges, you are one of a kind.”

His odradek extended and snapped a photograph to document this singular behavior, then he vanished in a shudder of flame. As entertaining as it was to watch Sam blunder his way slowly around the UCA like an overencumbered box turtle with a questionable sense of direction, he had many other irons in the fire at the moment. He could certainly do with another pizza, sometime soon, though. Apocalypse or no, a man had to eat.  


He stepped out of the material plane directly onto the black sand of a Beach. Interesting. This hadn’t been his intended destination. The reason for the detour, however, made itself immediately apparent. The girl wheeled around to face him as he approached, her golden hair and crimson dress blazing brilliant in the dead grey all around her. He strolled to a stop and looked her up and down, his skull mask tilted languidly to one side.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” he drawled. “Been a while since ol’ Bridget shuffled off her mortal coil. I was startin’ to think you didn’t want to see me at all.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, wringing her hands together anxiously. “I was afraid.”

He laughed, low in his throat. “Of me? But you know who I am. I live only to serve.”

Much to her visible discomfiture, the tall, heavily-armed man bowed his head and knelt before her, after the manner of a supplicant at the feet of a saint. She reached out and let her hand rest ever so lightly on the top of his hooded head, then drew it quickly away.

“Please get up,” she said, in a tremulous voice. “Please—I don’t want you to kneel.”

He rose slowly to his full height and gazed down at her from behind his black and gold masks. He seemed about to speak, but she pressed a finger to her lips and turned her eyes upward. In the sky above them, five human figures appeared, still and silent, and black as the outer void. They hung suspended in place for a fleeting moment, then faded and vanished, as quickly as they had appeared.

“What are they?”

“The five extinction entities. Five failed extinctions.”

“Failed,” he repeated, looking at her sharply. “How does an extinction fail?”

“There’s only one way. An extinction entity can choose not to exercise its full power, to end all life. It chooses to hold back. Some form of life persists. The extinction fails. The cycle repeats.”

“But, all of them? They all chose not to use their full power?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Weakness,” she sighed. “They each chose their connection to something in the living world over their role in its end. They became…sacrifices.”

“And you don’t want to be a sacrifice.”

“I don’t know what I want.” She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. “I know my role. What I have to do. But…I’m afraid that when the time comes, I’ll be weak.”

She turned back and looked pleadingly up at him. He studied her face for a beat, then his posture shifted. Her lips parted and her eyes fluttered shut as a black and gold gloved hand closed around her slender, white neck. Beneath his masks, a smile curled the corners of his lips. He took hold of her arm with his free hand and pulled her close, pressing the skeletal teeth of the golden mask against her ear.

“That’s why you brought me here,” he said, in a taunting half-murmur. “You don’t want to have a choice. You want me to take it from you.”

“It’s already yours,” she breathed. “Even I can’t break our connection, now.”

“That what you want? To break our connection?”

He tightened his grip on her neck. She gave a choking gasp, but remained still and passive in his hands, making no attempt to free herself.

“I—I can’t. The power is yours, now. To do with as you please.”

He released her and drew back, looking down into her wide, sea-blue eyes. She lifted a graceful hand and touched his mask with the tips of her fingers. For the briefest instant, so that he wasn’t even certain he’d seen it, the silky fabric of her dress seemed to flicker between black and crimson.

“You’re so strong,” she said softly. “But you have a weakness. A connection.”

A deep frown clouded his brow behind the lenses of his VOG mask. “You know my only connection to that world is broken. You did it yourself.”

“No. This is something else. Something…different.” He opened his mouth to make further protest, but she cut him off. “There’s no use denying it. You’re connected to him. To Sam. I feel it.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” he demanded. “How can—how is it even possible?”

She shook her head impatiently. “I don’t know how, it just _is_. Listen to me, I don’t have much time. The stronger your connection grows, the more power you’ll have over him. You’ll be able to anticipate his moves. See him when he hides himself. But it’s a blade that cuts both ways. If you don’t take care, it’ll make you vulnerable to him, too.”

“Alright, now you listen to me,” he said, taking her face in both hands and holding her gaze with his. “There is no connection, no bond—nothing that can stand between us. I am your prophet. Your right hand. I will burn the sky, set fire to the sea, crush this world to dust and ruin, for you. Nothing will stop me. Not even you.”

_We will stand together till the end. Then we will end. We will rest._

She let her eyes fall closed and laid her hands briefly on his, then pulled away, touching the gold-toned quipu necklace that lay on her collarbone.

“This was a gift from Sam. It connects us, so he can always find me.”

He reached out and plucked it from her neck, snapping the delicate chain, then she vanished without another word. When she had gone, he lifted the necklace to inspect it, pressing it to his mask and breathing deeply, letting its scent permeate his consciousness. Then he knotted it securely around his belt and stepped back into the material plane. It was high time he ordered that pizza.

“The Elder is dead,” Higgs said, as he appeared in the safehouse with his usual fiery flourish. He set a silver cargo container on the table before Sam. “This is for you.”

Sam frowned and blinked up at him. “Dead?”

“Dead.”

Higgs turned away, dismissed his masks and armor, and lay down on the bed, facing the wall. Sam looked at him for a moment, then back down at the container. It was certainly addressed to himself and it was from the Elder, but what the fuck was Higgs doing with it? And how did he know the Elder had died? How did he know the Elder at all, for that matter?

These thoughts were pushed from his mind as the reality of what Higgs had abruptly announced sank in. The kindly old man, who’d always been so pleased to see him and had always managed to send him away with a jar of his homemade pickles or some useful little item, had died. The thought of that dear, wrinkled face, cold and dead, and the old man twisted into a shrieking, mangled horror, tethered to a world he could no longer understand, nearly brought tears to his eyes.

“I can’t leave him like that,” he said, getting up from his chair.

“He’s gone. I cut him loose.”

“Oh. Why were you up there?”

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” Higgs muttered, still staring at the wall.

“Oh. Are you ok?”

“I’ve killed tens of thousands of people, Sam. What’s one old man to me?”

“Don’t fucking do that,” Sam said, with sudden heat.

Higgs gave a patient sigh. “Do what, Sam?”

“Don’t fucking shut me out.”

Higgs made no reply, so Sam crossed to the bed and sat down behind him, trying to turn him over. Higgs huffed irritably and resisted as best he could, but as usual, Sam won the contest. He gave up and allowed himself to be rolled onto his back, but he stared up at the ceiling, refusing to meet Sam’s gaze.

“You went and cut the Elder loose,” Sam said, not to be deterred. “Why’d you do that?”

“I owed him one,” Higgs said, with a listless shrug. “He was kind to me once. Long time ago.”

“That’s a good thing. I’m really glad you were there for him. So, why are you being an asshole about it?”

Higgs glanced at him, then returned to staring sullenly at the ceiling.

Sam shook his head. “You can’t disconnect from me, Higgs. I get that you’re hurting, and you don’t understand it, but trying to hurt me isn’t gonna make it better.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to fuckin’ talk about it.”

“Right. Well, too fucking bad.”

Higgs looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Sam said. “Welcome to having a relationship. You don’t get to shut down when you’re upset. You have to let me in, whether you like it or not.”

“I’m not upset,” Higgs retorted. “I’m fuckin’ tired and I want to be left alone.”

“No.”

Higgs blinked in frank astonishment. “No?”

“No. You’re not fucking tired. You’re in pain and you need me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine. I’ll go,” Higgs said, moving sit up.

Sam put a hand on his chest and pushed him firmly back down. “No.”

Higgs blue eyes kindled. He took hold of Sam’s arm to throw it off, but Sam grappled him and pushed him down again, pinning him to the bed with his solid weight.

“Get the fuck off me!” Higgs growled, struggling against the hold. “You can’t force me to stay, Sam! You can’t—”

His angry words were stifled and dissolved into a groan in his throat as Sam’s mouth covered his. His jaw slackened and his lips parted of their own accord. His tongue slid forward to find Sam’s, caressing it hungrily, tasting his mouth and breathing deeply of his scent. Sam drew away and rolled onto his back, pulling Higgs into his arms.

Higgs was still angry, however—at Sam for winning every battle of wills and at himself for being so easily defeated—and accepted the gesture with a bad grace. He lay there stiffly, attempting to maintain his dissipating wrath, but gradually, he found his body melting into the embrace. At last, he surrendered entirely. He let his head rest heavily on Sam’s chest, feeling the regular rise and fall of his breathing and listening to his heartbeat.

In truth, he felt the death of the Elder keenly. More than he had imagined he could. If the loss of that small connection was so painful to him, then the loss of a stronger one would be much more so. And the loss of one to whom his whole being was bound would utterly destroy him. A thought occurred to him then, that chilled him to the bone and obliterated his lingering ire in a shockwave of blind, unreasoning terror.

Lockne had said there would be a final death. One last cord to cut. What if that death was Sam’s. What if his final act in this tragic farce would be to hear this heartbeat stilled. To feel this body go cold. To sever this cord.

He would never have the strength to do it. He could never be the angel of death that guided Sam across the great divide into the eternal unknown. The grief already welling up inside him spilled over, choking his throat and forcing tears from his eyes. At the same time, humiliation at this display of weakness rose up to condemn him. But try as he might, he was powerless to stop the flood of tears streaming down his face and soaking into Sam’s black undershirt. So he lay there grief-stricken and sick with shame, racked internally with pain he could not comprehend, let alone control.

Through all of this, Sam held him in his strong arms and said nothing. He made no attempt to question him about the source of this sudden torrent of emotion, nor to comfort him with meaningless platitudes. He was simply there. An anchor. Or a rock. Or something fuckin’ heavy as shit and sturdy as an old warhorse.

After a long while, the tears seemed to have spent themselves. His body stopped shaking and his breathing calmed and became steadier. Sam must have felt it too, because he squeezed him tighter and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Sam,” Higgs said hoarsely. “Don’t ever die. Ok?”

Sam hesitated. “Uh…I can’t really promise I won’t ever die again. It kind of happens to me a lot.”

“You know what I mean, you asshole. The real, no coming back way.”

“Oh. Nah, I won’t do that. Who’d bring you pizza?”

“Fuckin’ no one, is who,” Higgs grumbled, wiping his face with his sleeve. “That order I put in when I came back was up for hours before you took it.”

“You put me as your preferred courier. No one takes orders marked for me.”

“Right. I almost forgot, you’re a legend among shit-haulers.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s mostly because when an order is marked for me, everyone knows it’s gonna be something only a suicidal idiot would take on.”

Higgs contemplated this for a moment. “Remember when I made you deliver a pizza and that champagne all the way from Timefall Farm, and you had to do it on foot since the shit was marked fragile and hand-carry only?”

“Yeah.”

“Why the fuck did you do that?”

“Cause it was for you, you fucking dick.”

“Wow. You really are a suicidal idiot.”

“You have no idea,” Sam laughed. “There was a Cliff hurricane over Lake Knot, so it was pouring rain so hard I could barely see, and Deadman was calling me in a panic every six seconds. You should’ve heard him when I told him I was on an order and I’d be there as soon as I could. I thought he was gonna shit himself.”

“Fuck,” Higgs said, through his own laughter. “I’d have given anything to see that.”

“What, you mean you weren’t lurking around taking pictures to embarrass me with later?”

“Fuck no, even I knew to steer clear of the Cliff shit. I wasn’t about to get dragged into one of those hell dimensions.”

“But, wait,” Sam frowned. “ I thought whatever you were doing brought him here. I thought he was part of the whole…thing.”

“Nope. I still have no idea how he did it, and I’m death’s social secretary. That motherfucker didn’t follow any of the rules.”

“How’d you know about the hell dimensions?”

“He got a hold of me once. I wasted about a thousand of his skeleton soldiers, but I couldn’t even touch him. Then he just…let me go. I woke up in a pile of dead fish in the middle of the old South Knot ruins.”

“Holy shit. Did you know who he was?”

Higgs shook his head. “Amelie wouldn’t say shit about him and I had other things to worry about. Did you know?”

“No. Not till after everything.”

“Are you…are you ok?”

“No.”

“I guess that was a stupid fuckin’ question.” Higgs happened to glance over at Lou’s tank at that moment, and he frowned. “Hey, what’s up with Lou? The thing’s all red.”

Sam craned his neck to look, then jumped to his feet and bounded across the room. Lou’s tank was dark, and the port was flashing ‘NO CONNECTION’ in big, red letters.

“Fuck!” he snarled, grabbing his jumpsuit, which he pulled on hastily.

He connected the tank to the odradek, then disconnected and reconnected it again, tapping and rocking it all the while, but there was no change. It remained dark and unresponsive.

“Sam,” Higgs said from the terminal, where he had Sam’s messages open. “You better look at this.”

The message was from a few minutes earlier and read as follows.

Sender  
Capital Knot City  
Office of the President

Subject  
CODE DELTA EMERGENCY ALERT

ATTENTION ALL BRIDGES STAFF

THIS IS A CODE DELTA EMERGENCY ALERT. CAPITAL KNOT CITY ON SECURITY LOCKDOWN LEVEL 1.

EXPLOSIONS IN CAPITAL KNOT MEDICAL FACILITY. CASUALTIES UNKNOWN. DEMENS OPERATIVES CONFIRMED ON SCENE, ARMED AND DANGEROUS.

HIGH RISK OF BT EXPOSURE, VOIDOUTS. ALL PORTERS TO REMAIN OUTSIDE CITY PERIMETER.

STAND BY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

In the time it took Sam to read through this, Higgs had resumed his armor and masks. Sam shoved his feet into a pair of boots, made sure Lou’s tank was securely attached to his jumpsuit, then Higgs hooked an arm around him and they vanished in a roaring shudder of flame and black sparks.


	14. Demens

The vast, underground complex that comprised the ostensible White House was in a tumult of frantic activity. Aides and other administrative personnel rushed to and fro, all talking into their comm links at once. Armed, black-uniformed security men patrolled the halls in pairs. Doors banged open and shut, and a cacophony of voices could be heard behind every one.

Higgs brazenly materialized with his human cargo in the section of the building containing the oval office, strategy room, and other such high clearance-level chambers, but as Sam had predicted, no one appeared to take any notice. Once inside, he led Higgs up the main corridor, headed for the oval office itself. He had grown up in the White House and had none of the reverence for the place that seemed to affect other visitors to these hallowed halls. His only thought regarding what he should do in the current emergency was to go directly to the top, and that was his purpose.

They had nearly reached the end of the corridor, where it branched into two hallways, when a squad of armed security personnel came streaming around the corners, five from the right and five from the left. Sam paused, eyeing them impatiently as they leveled their assault rifles at him.

“Hands up!” the leader barked.

“The fuck are you talking about?” Sam returned, with a derisive snort. “Lower those weapons before you kill someone, you idiots.”

“I said hands up!” the leader repeated, then he tapped his earpiece and spoke to it. “Detaining hostile. White House. North hall.”

“God damn it,” Sam said. “Higgs, they think you’re with the terrorists.”

“I wonder what gave them that impression,” Higgs remarked drily.

“Hey. Dumbass. He’s not with the Demens, he’s with me.”

“Unidentified porter,” the leader said, still speaking to his earpiece. “You, porter! Identify yourself!”

“Sam Bridges. Tell Die-Hardman if he wants to have a White House left for you to guard, he’d better call off his dogs.”

“He just called you dogs,” Higgs observed to the security men. “You gonna take that from a porter?”

“Hostile, identify yourself!” the leader demanded.

Higgs turned to look behind him, as though he supposed the request might be addressed to someone else in the area, then turned back to the man. “Oh, you mean me. I’m not hostile. Not yet.”

“Identify yourself!” the leader repeated, emphasizing his point by shaking the barrel of his rifle in a threatening manner.

“This ain’t a fight you want to pick, gentlemen,” Higgs said, as he stepped forward to place himself between Sam and the wall of black helmets and assault rifles. “I may be unarmed, but I don’t need a gun to teach you some manners.”

“Hostile appears to be unarmed,” the leader told his earpiece.

“Higgs, cut it out,” Sam sighed. “Just tell him your name.”

“My real name, or the made up one?”

“Stand down!” a voice shouted, from the left hallway. “I said stand down, god damn it!”

The security men hastily lowered their rifles and backed up against the walls, as Die-Hardman came hurrying around the corner, flanked by a squad of secret service agents. He stopped short, catching sight of the black and gold monolith that was Higgs, towering in the middle of the corridor.

“Hey,” Sam said, stepping out from behind him. “What’s going on?”

Die-Hardman reached out to shake his hand, with a palpable look of relief. “Sam, I’m glad you’re here. Sorry about all this. We didn’t expect you to show up with your, uh. Security escort.”

“He gave me a lift. You wanna get rid of these assholes?”

Die-Hardman waved a hand at the assholes in question, who about-faced and filed away with dutiful alacrity.

“You better come to my office,” he said. “The situation has gotten worse since the initial alert.”

Sam and Higgs followed the president and his secret service detail down the left hallway, and into the spacious oval office, complete with its artificial view of the holographic White House gardens, at which Higgs shook his head and chuckled.

“Sam, I know we have an understanding with this…gentleman,” Die-Hardman said, as he seated himself behind his desk. “But bringing him into the most secure location in the UCA was extremely reckless. Not to mention a direct violation of our agreement.”

“He might be the only thing standing between you and a smoking crater for a capitol,” Sam shot back. “The agreement cover that?”

Die-Hardman’s eyes flickered to the gold skull mask, then back to Sam. “You don’t mean to suggest that we would let him get involved in this. No. No fucking way is that happening.”

Sam crossed his arms. “Ok. How are you dealing with the Demens? You know, the ones he used to lead. Who are in the city blowing shit up right now.”

“We are…working on a response,” the president said, sounding anything but confident.

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, Deadman burst in through the door, out of breath and mopping his brow with his handkerchief.

“Sam, it’s so good to see you,” he puffed. “We couldn’t raise you on the codec and Fragile was—holy shit! Higgs! He’s here, in the oval office!”

“We are aware that he is here,” Die-Hardman said patiently. “Higgs Monaghan, this is Deadman, our chief of crossdimensional medical research.”

The gold skull turned and regarded Deadman silently. Deadman lifted his hand timidly in greeting and gave a nervous little laugh. The skull turned back to the president.

“You said it’s gotten worse,” Sam urged. “Can someone please tell us what the fuck is going on?”

“I know exactly what’s goin’ on,” Higgs said, keeping his eyes on Die-Hardman. “After all, it’s my men out there, takin’ your shit apart.”

“Why don’t you enlighten us then, Mr. Monaghan,” Die-Hardman said, through his teeth.

“The name’s Higgs. Mr. Monaghan was…somebody’s father. Tell me, Mr. President, how many functioning BB pods you have right now? Rough estimate.”

Die-Hardman shook his head. “Not enough. A lot of them were compromised in the initial explosions.”

“And the chiral network is down for…at least four major cities? That’s what I thought.” Higgs turned to include Sam and Deadman. “For anyone who’s not following, the Demens attacked the Capital Knot ICU. Knocked out life-support to a big chunk of the stillmothers, thus rendering the BBs to which they were linked nonfunctional. Including Sam’s.”

“Oh, Sam!” Deadman exclaimed. “If we don’t get it hooked up to life-support right away, it could die! Let me take it now, before it’s too late.”

Sam unhooked Lou’s dark pod and handed it over reluctantly. “Take care of her, Deadman. Promise me.”

Deadman nodded, cradling the little container in his arms. “I will do everything I can, Sam. I promise.”

“What’s their next move?” Die-Hardman asked Higgs, as Deadman bustled away out the door.

“Their next move will be to trigger a massive voidout in the middle of your capitol city,” Higgs replied indolently, picking up a pen from the president’s desk and twirling it in his fingers. “If they’re followin’ my playbook, that is. You don’t happen to be pickin’ up any chiral spikes in the vicinity of your ICU, do you?”

“Yes, we are. But we can’t figure out why. Knocking the stillmothers off life-support wouldn’t do it. They haven’t had time to go necro.”

Fragile tore into the atmosphere of the room just then, beneath her spinning umbrella. She took in the scene at a glance, nodded to Sam, and stood waiting to be addressed.

“All we know is that we are reading high levels of BT activity. Preventing a voidout is our primary objective, whatever the underlying cause.” Die-Hardman continued, then turned to her. “Fragile, were you able to make contact with Lockne and Målingen?”

“I was,” she said. “They are working on reconnecting Mountain Knot, but without the network key, it’ll take time. Heartman is safe and sound up at his lab, but he’s disconnected, too.”

“What about the staff and other patients in the ICU?” Sam interjected. “One of them could wander into a BT at any moment.”

“Security protocols have been engaged, so the risk is minimal for the time-being,” Die-Hardman replied. “But we have taken that into account.”

“And you’re…workin’ on a response,” Higgs said, cocking his head to the side. “That right?”

“We are. My best tactical advisors are developing a solution as we speak.”

“This is idiotic!” Sam growled, having come to the end of his patience. “Higgs is standing right here! The problem could be solved in minutes!”

“You can’t be serious,” Fragile cut in. “Terrorists are attacking the city, and you want to send the biggest terrorist in the world to deal with them?”

The erstwhile terrorist laughed delightedly at this, which earned him a glare from Fragile.

Die-Hardman shook his head. “Absolutely not. That is not an option.”

Their conference was interrupted yet again, as two women in grey administrative attire entered the room carrying data pads. The president rose to meet them and they spoke into his ear, indicating to things on the screens. He nodded a few times and tapped the screens, replying to them in a rapid undertone. As this was going on, Sam took Higgs’ hand and squeezed it.

“Higgs, please,” he whispered, looking up into his bright-blue eyes, behind the VOG mask lenses. “Lou’s gonna die.”

“Sam, you have something to say?” Die-Hardman asked, as his two aides retreated.

“You heard what I had to say. There’s no reason to let innocent people die, when Higgs could put a stop to all of this right now.”

“The matter is not up for debate. This man is a known terrorist. We cannot risk exposing him to civilians, not to mention the highly classified tech in that facility, which I cannot allow to fall into the wrong hands.”

Sam laughed, in utter disbelief. “Are you actually saying you think Higgs might steal state secrets? And give them to who? The Russians, who probably don’t exist anymore?”

“I’m sorry, Sam, but there’s more at stake here than you understand. I am responsible for—”

“This has all been very enlightening, Mr. President,” Higgs drawled. He spoke at his usual pitch and languid cadence, but his super-resonant voice, projected through his mask, effectively shut all the other mouths in the room. “It’s a comfort to know our great nation is in such…capable hands. Now, I have a proposal of my own to put forward, if you don’t mind. I’m gonna do whatever the fuck I want, and all your horses and all your men can’t do shit to stop me. How ‘bout that, sound good?”

He spread his arms and gave a jaunty bow, and before the commander-in-chief even had time to look outraged, vanished with a low roar and shuddering burst of red flame.

“Jesus Christ,” Die-Hardman groaned, sinking back into his chair. He leaned on an elbow and supported his forehead in his palm. “What the fuck are we going to do, now.”

“Call off your men,” Sam said. “Get them as far out of his way as you can.”

“He’s right,” Fragile agreed, as much to Sam’s surprise as the president’s. “Higgs is more powerful than anything you’ve got. There is nothing your men can do but get themselves killed.”

Die-Hardman looked back and forth between them, his face working through a number of emotions. Finally, his gaze rested on Sam.

“You…really trust him?”

“I do.”

He sat in agonized indecision for another moment, then picked up the phone on his desk.

“General Singh. I want all units out of the medical facility now. Fall back to defensive positions and await further instructions. I am aware, General. Get it done.”

“You did the right thing,” Sam said, when he had replaced the receiver in the cradle.

“Maybe. And maybe I just unleashed a human nuclear bomb on our capital city. I guess we’ll find out.”

Rather than going directly to the medical facility, Higgs rematerialized first in the spot he had chosen for the Demens to breach the Capital Knot perimeter, should he ever have need to carry out his plans for taking down the chiral network.

At the eastern end of the capitol complex, where it met the former Atlantic ocean, some old service tunnels ran below the city. They had long been abandoned and sealed off, flooded by the rising sea-level, but with a little insight into civil engineering and a few well-placed bribes, he’d discovered one that had been sealed off, but not entirely flooded.

This tunnel, along with the others, lead to the shore that bordered the old ruins, and exited the city below the reach of the perimeter scanners. There was about a foot of water in it at low tide, but that posed no obstacle to men with determination and all-terrain trucks. Breaching the seal would be a simple matter of acetylene torches and patience, and the entrance would be wide enough for two men to walk through side-by-side. He couldn’t have procured a more perfect ingress to an enemy fortification if he’d built it himself.

Sure enough, he found the seal cracked open. So the Demens had entered this way. Good boys. He flickered out of the living world and back into it at the further end of the tunnel. Two defensive trucks. Good again. Light on their feet. No more men than they needed to do the job. But where were the drivers? Of course. Standing watch, just like they’d been taught. It almost brought a tear to his eye.

He stepped out of the tunnel between the two armed, black and gold-clad men and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. They whipped around and trained their weapons on him, then paused in visible uncertainty.

“Boss?” one said hesitantly, his voice muffled by his VOG mask. “Boss, is that you?”

“How you been, Flaherty,” Higgs said tranquilly, as if he spoke with the man every day.

“Holy shit, boss!” Flaherty exclaimed, pulling off his mask. “Look, Marquez, it’s the boss!”

“I can fucking see that, Flaherty,” Marquez replied tartly. “What the fuck happened to you, boss? Everyone said you were dead.”

“Everyone says a lot of things,” Higgs said. “Though, in this instance, I suppose they were slightly more correct than usual. I was dead, briefly. Twice, in fact. What about you fellas? Either of you die and resurrect lately?”

“No, boss,” Flaherty said, looking down at his boots, as if abashed by the admission. “I don’t think I can resurrect.”

“He wasn’t serious, jackass,” Marquez muttered, jabbing his compatriot with an elbow. “The boys are gonna flip shit when they find out you’re alive, boss. This is the best news we’ve had since, like, ever. You been by the canyon yet?”

“No, I have not had the…pleasure. As of yet, you two are the only ones who know I’m back.”

“Hey, boss, what are you doing here?” Flaherty asked. “You come to see the show?”

“Ah, about that. I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans. There won’t be any show tonight.”

“What do you mean?” Marquez asked, frowning.

“I mean exactly what I say.”

“But boss, the boys already got the popper into the med facility,” Flaherty said. “They radioed a minute ago. They’re just holding off the UCA troops till it goes up.”

“Who’s goin’ up with it?”

“Finch and Abernathy. Everyone else is—” Marquez stopped short and held up a finger, listening to some incoming communication over his earpiece. The he looked up at Higgs, his brow furrowed deeper than before. “The UCA troops backed off. Full retreat to defensive posts. I don’t understand, why aren’t they trying to stop us?”

Higgs shrugged. “Maybe they know somethin’ we don’t.”

“Maybe they know something we don’t, yeah,” Marquez said slowly. “But not something you don’t.”

“There aren’t a lot of things I don’t know, Marquez.”

“Boss…where’ve you been? You were gone for six months. Why didn’t you let us know you were alive?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Are you—are you working for them?”

“Officially? Yes, I am,” Higgs said placidly. “Unofficially…well, adversity makes strange bedfellows.”

“What about everything you taught us?” Marquez demanded, swallowing hard to steady a tremor in his voice. “What about resisting the oppressors and doing anything it takes to protect our freedom?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, most of that was bullshit. It’s a long story, but I was using the Demens to distract Bridges and the UCA so I could bring about the apocalypse.”

“Whoa, cool,” Flaherty breathed. “Like in the book of Revelation? With the beast and the lady in scarlet and everything?”

“No, not—” Higgs frowned thoughtfully. “Huh. Actually, it was pretty much exactly like that.”

“You were using us,” Marquez said, with quickly rising wrath. “All of that shit you said—everything we gave up…and you were just using us. And now you’re selling us out to the UCA. How could you fucking do this!”

As he spoke these final words, the young man leveled his assault rifle at Higgs. A bright muzzle-flash erupted, along with a staccato pop of gunfire and a spray of crimson. Marquez crumpled to the ground, blood pouring from beneath his VOG mask and soaking into the sand.

“Holy shit, boss, he was gonna shoot you!” Flaherty exclaimed, lowering his smoking rifle.

“I gathered,” Higgs said, with a distasteful curl of his lip, nudging the body away from his person with the tip of his boot.

“But why? Did he go fucking crazy or something?”

“Flaherty, is there any chance you were listening to what I just explained?”

“Of course I was listening, boss,” Flaherty said, in an injured tone. “You said you were gonna end the world like Revelation, but you work for the UCA now.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that all the ideology was pretty much propaganda I used to manipulate all of you into following my orders without question?”

“No,” Flaherty shrugged. “I didn’t understand most of that stuff, to be honest. Besides, I don’t really care what we’re doing, I just like being on your team.”

“And you’re still…on my team.”

“You know I am, boss. Also, I just shot Marquez to save you, so. You’re welcome.”

Higgs looked keenly into his face. The young man stared back at him, all wide brown eyes and frank bewilderment at being examined thus. There was literally nothing in him. Nothing but an earnest desire to please his chosen master. Like a dog. A big, sweet, stupid dog. Who also happened to have excellent combat sense and a trigger finger like a steel trap.

“God damn it, Flaherty,” Higgs said, grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him into a hearty embrace. “I could kiss you right now, only I don’t think my boyfriend would like it very much.”

“Thank—thank you, boss,” Flaherty stammered, half out of his senses with mingled joy and terror. “Boyfriend…that’s nice…happy for you.”

Higgs released him and rubbed his hands together, looking down the tunnel at the trucks.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” he said, crouching to remove Marquez’s comms earpiece. “You’re gonna load this asshole into your truck and get the fuck out of here. No main roads. Don’t attract attention. Head up to the incinerator and dump the body, but don’t light him up. Once you do, the BTs will be on you like flies on shit, so wait till I give the word. Got it?”

Flaherty nodded. “Got it, boss.”

“Repeat it to me.”

“Load up this asshole, no main roads, incinerator, dump the body, and don’t light him up till you say.”

“Outstanding,” Higgs said, attaching the earpiece and checking the connection. “You should be aware, though…no one else is comin’ out of here alive.”

Flaherty paused, looking genuinely worried. “But you will, right?”

“Yes, Flaherty. I will. How else would I—nevermind. You’ve got your orders, now get moving. And stay off the comms. You’ll hear from me in a little while.”

“Ok, boss,” Flaherty said, with a cheerful wave as Higgs dematerialized. “See you soon!”


	15. Beached Things

A sudden gust of wind ripped through the outskirts of the city, whistling between the red-brick buildings of the abandoned sector, and howling beneath the gigantic overpass. Rolling, grey thunderheads gathered and a flash of lightning split the sky, illuminating the white promontory jutting up from the medical facility.

Armed Demens soldiers, clad in black and gold, asp helmets and VOG masks concealing their faces, held positions on either side of the concrete barrier. Down the ramp behind them, the huge security door had been blown apart, and fragments of black, twisted metal littered the concrete all around it.

With another flash of lightning and peal of thunder, the sky burst and rain began to fall in torrents. At that moment, one of the helmeted Demens shouted, then another. Others came hurrying down the stairs from the top of the building, weapons readied, believing the enemy soldiers had returned.

But what had disturbed their comrades was something else. Something they could not have foreseen. Calling back and forth to one another in confusion, the men above helped pull the men on guard below up onto the barriers.

A lake of ink-black tar was rising to swallow the ground all around them, pouring down the ramp to the blasted door like a river of pitch. Huge waves swelled, thick and black and loathsome, disgorging ruined buildings and the rusted remains of automobiles, which rose and sank with the motion of the tar.

Across this nightmare sea, the figure of a man came striding, like a grotesque parody of Christ walking upon the water. As he drew nearer, he spread his arms and rose high into the air above them, revealing the black and gold stripes inside his hooded cloak. Seeing their savior thus miraculously returned, a cheer went up among them, some holding their weapons aloft in salutation.

“You boys havin’ fun without me?” his booming voice called down, clear and resonant, even over the noise of their shouts and the pouring rain. “Y’know, if you’re throwin’ a party, you ought to invite _everyone_.”

The Demens moment of triumph was short-lived. As he said this, the man in the golden mask raised his black-gloved hand. A deafening cacophony of groans and shrieks rose to drown the cheers of his disciples. Now utterly out of their reckoning, the beset soldiers raised their weapons in challenge, holding their ground on the steep slope of the barriers as best they could in the deluge.

There was a breathless, waiting pause, then the dead burst from the tar and fell upon them, their roiling, black forms rising in frenzied surges to grasp at the living men. The popping clatter of gunfire rang out, but the struggle was as vain as it was brief. The final cries of the men the dead had seized were lost beneath the tar, as they were dragged down and borne swiftly out to sea.

Satisfied with his work thus far, Higgs descended to stand on the glassy, black surface once more. He removed his gold skull mask and plunged it into the tar. As he drew it up again, a bulging mass of sludge loomed and coalesced, and finally split into the forms of two massive, oil-black lions.

These particular housecats of Lucifer were smaller in size than the one he had brought to amuse the MULEs, standing only a foot or two in height above him, but they bore the same golden masks and manes of thrashing tentacles.

“Go get the corpse and the two men guarding it,” Higgs said to them.

The eager hunters snarled and leaped forward, but he stayed them with a word.

“Hey! Michael, Raphael, look at my face. No eating them, you got that? They go out to sea with the others. Tell me you understand.”

The lions snorted and tossed their manes in reply.

“Good. Now go on, get. That thing is about to pop.”

Higgs stood watching as the lions bounded down the ramp into the facility, then lifted his head and scented the air. The prickling up the back of his neck and the metallic tang of chiralium on his tongue told him there were more BTs in the area. BTs other than those he’d summoned, which never triggered his senses that way.

His body tore out of reality with its customary roar and flare, and reappeared somewhere in the depths of the medical center. The wide hallway in which he found himself was dark, but for the dim, red glow of the emergency lights wherever it intersected with adjoining halls.

A painted sign on the wall behind a nurse’s station announced that this was the ICU isolation ward. He needed no such information. He could sense the BTs nearby, like a static charge tingling in his skin. He steeled himself against the inevitable incursion on his person and walked down the long, dark hallway, in the direction from which he felt their pull.

They felt him, too. As he drew closer, they began to reach out to him, pleading and tugging, making his chest ache and his eyes water. He rounded the corner and saw a pair of heavy, steel double-doors at the far end of the hall. They were in there, for sure. So many of them.

Curiously, light shone out from the two small, rectangular windows in the doors, and illuminated the strip of white tile upon which he walked. That meant at least some power was getting to that room, but he couldn’t guess how.

He knew the Demens plan to the last detail, because he’d written it. No power should be on in this area, and none was, as far as he could see. Even the hallway emergency lights were dark. He approached the doors and stopped short with a muttered curse, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes, as they slid open of their own accord.

It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the sudden, blinding illumination. Then his hands fell dead at his sides. For a long moment, he stood motionless. Stunned. Unable to comprehend what he saw before him.

He was standing in a long, wide room, looking out over row upon row of oblong tanks, the length and width of hospital beds, but covered with domed glass. The large number of these tanks, alarming as it was in its own right, was not the thing that had staggered him.

The bombs had indeed cut off the power to this chamber. The fluorescent tubes on the ceiling were dead and dark. But above every one of the tanks was a flickering form, corded and suspended in the air. Not murky, ugly grey, but shining white, radiant as the sun.

He tore off his masks and cast them on the floor, gazing about him in breathless awe, as thick, black tears rolled down his face. At that moment, he felt with absolute certainty that this was the most beautiful thing his eyes would ever behold.

As he stood among these luminous creatures, it gradually occurred to him that no wail, no shriek, no moan of suffering had assailed his ears. The room was silent, but for the echo of a musical hum, so faint that he wasn’t certain he really heard it.

When he had gathered enough of his wits to move again, he stepped over to the nearest tank. The designation SM-17 and the name Chandran, Z. were stamped in black letters on the side. Through the glass dome, he could see the body of a young woman, lying serene and still in a white hospital gown.

The light shifted across her face and he looked up with start. The brilliant form above the tank had turned toward him and was extending its hand. An icy shock of something akin to terror shivered up his spine, nearly taking his breath away.

BTs grasped blindly about the living world using their umbilical cords. None had ever turned to look at him with its unseeing eyes, let alone reached out to him with its ethereal hand. Slowly, compelled by some force he could not resist, he raised his black-gloved hand to touch hers, shimmering and white.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing on a Beach. The cold wind from the sea stung his tar-stained cheeks and made his cloak flare out behind him. At the edge of the shore, where the waves broke and dispersed on the soot-hued sand, a girl stood facing the sea. A white gown fluttered and billowed about her and the wind ruffled her short, black curls.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, as he strode up to stand beside her. “But I know the way.”

He looked down into her face. The same face from the tank, but bright and animated. Tawny skin, large, dark-brown eyes, and the sweetest smile that ever melted a hard man’s heart. Beautiful.

“You’re not like the other dead I’ve encountered,” he said. “You’re here because you want to be.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you stay?”

“For his sake. They called him BB-17, but he was my little boy, Arjun.”

“Where is Arjun now?”

She smiled softly. “He’s gone on ahead. Can you hear him? He’s calling for me.”

“Wait, Zahira. Just one minute, please. You were…you knew what was happening to you and your baby?”

“Of course. Arjun visited me here. I could hold him and sing to him, and he could show me memories of what he saw and heard and felt. Every moment I spent without him…but that doesn’t matter. It was worth it, to be with him when I could.”

“Is it the same, for all of you?”

“Some of the mothers suffer because their babies are afraid a lot and have distressing memories, but most are usually happy and content, like mine. A few of the mothers say theirs never saw anything, only heard voices. Hundreds of them, talking all the time. We don’t know why they’re different.”

Higgs thought he had a pretty fair fuckin’ idea why, but he wasn’t about to burden this woman’s soul with that ugly business at her final crossing.

“Are you all leaving now?”

“Yes. Our babies have crossed over, so there’s no reason to stay. We only waited because we felt you coming.”

“All the babies have…died?”

“All the ones with mothers in our ward. When the explosions happened, the life-support shut off and our bodies disconnected from them. We were freaked out for a while, but then the babies started popping onto our Beaches, ready to cross over. It’s been a really amazing day. Everyone is so happy.”

“I’m happy for you,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it. “I hear your little boy calling, so I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you for talking with me.”

“Thank you for being here to see me off,” she said, smiling up at him. She turned to step out into the water, then paused. “Oh, one of the mothers wants to talk to you before she goes. She says it’s important. You should go find her, she’s in bed twenty-eight. Goodbye!”

“Goodbye, Zahira.”

Higgs stepped back into the material world sick to his stomach and trembling with apprehension. BB-28 was Lou’s designation. If she had crossed over…Sam would be fucking devastated. He found the correct bed and was about to reach for the figure above it, when his brain caught up and processed the name stamped on the side.

He stopped dead in his tracks. His face went ash-white and he stood frozen, staring at the equally pale face beneath the glass. It couldn’t be true. There must be some kind of mistake. Even that icy-veined demoness couldn’t be capable of something this cruel. This utterly…_inhuman_.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and grasped the hand of the shining form above the tank, without waiting to be invited. This was too fucking important for polite formalities.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing on another beach. The cold wind from the sea stung his tar-stained cheeks and made his cloak flare out behind him. At the edge of the shore, where the waves broke and dispersed on the soot-hued sand, a girl stood facing him, her back to the sea. A white gown fluttered and billowed about her and the wind ruffled her long, blonde hair.

“Thank you for coming, Higgs,” she smiled. “I’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”

A tremendous, thundering boom shook the walls of the White House complex. Someone screamed, far down the hall. Multiple sets of footsteps went hurrying back and forth, past the door of the oval office. Die-Hardman squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head.

“Fuck,” he murmured. “Fuck. It’s all over. A voidout in the city.”

Before Sam or Fragile had a chance to say anything in response, the door banged open and a woman with short, dark-grey hair and a pants-suit of almost the exact same color rushed in.

She paused, seeing that he was not alone. “Mr. President, a word?”

“Sam, Fragile, this is Georgia Coen, my Chief of Staff,” he said, in a taut, strained voice. “It’s alright, Georgia, you can speak freely.”

Georgia nodded her greeting to them, then looked at the president. “There’s been a voidout, sir. A massive one.”

“We heard it. Estimated casualties?”

“There’s no way to tell, as of yet. It took place about two-hundred kilometers east of the city, off the coast.”

He looked up at her quickly. “In the ocean? It was in the fucking ocean?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve never seen anything like it. Frankly, we don’t know how it’s even possible. But we have our people working on it.”

“Fuck me,” he breathed. “And the medical facility, any news?”

“Yes and no,” she said, hesitating. “We were waiting to report to you till we knew more. The Demens seem to have…disappeared, sir.”

He frowned. “Disappeared?”

“A heavy rainstorm began shortly after 2100, then stopped several minutes later. According to the reports from the ground, no hostile activity has been observed anywhere in the city perimeter since it cleared.”

“What does General Singh say?”

“The General is having the troops hold their defensive positions. But he, uh…he thinks the Demens are what caused the voidout off the coast.”

“Are the Demens in possession of a boat?”

“Not to our knowledge, sir. Again, this is preliminary and highly speculative. We’ll know more once the rest of the reports come in.”

Georgia gave a start as the air around them roared and a figure materialized, with a flickering shower of red sparks. Higgs’ masks were off and his hood cast back, his face waxen and streaked with tar. Without a word, he turned to Sam and held out his hand. Sam took it and they vanished the same way he had appeared.

“What the hell was that?” Georgia exclaimed.

“That was Sam’s security escort,” Die-Hardman answered, technically speaking the truth. “He can use the Beach to travel, like Fragile.”

“What was wrong with him? His face had, like, black shit all over it.”

“There are a lot of things wrong with him,” Fragile replied wryly. “The black shit is tar. His DOOMs level is very high and the chiral allergy affects him in some singular ways.”

“That’s…amazing. And kind of disgusting.”

“And he is entirely disgusting, so it fits,” Fragile shrugged.

“Disgusting or not, it looks like he can at least be trusted as far as Sam says,” Die-Hardman said. “Georgia, inform General Singh that we can begin search and rescue ASAP.”

Flaherty pulled up to the incinerator, with its towering smokestack, daunting, fortress-like walls, and incongruously always-open doors. He parked the truck before one of these and hopped out. Going around to the back, he dragged Marquez’s body out of the bed, then heaved it over his shoulder like a sack of flour, whistling a little tune to himself as he carried it inside.

He laid the body down on the slab that would descend into the incineration drawer, then leaned against a pillar to wait. He hoped the boss would call soon. This place gave him the creeps. Not that he believed in ghosts or anything, but BTs liked to hang out where death-related stuff happened, and they were pretty scary.

He looked down at Marquez, lying cold and still on the slab. He felt a pang of sadness for the man. Marquez was kind of a jerk, sure, but he wasn’t the worst jerk in the Demens. He’d never made fun of Flaherty for being illiterate, or called his mom an inbred whore, like some of the men had. His mom had been a whore, but it wasn’t nice to say it the way they did.

“Hey…I know you can’t hear me, but I’m sorry I had to kill you,” he said. “You did try to shoot the boss, so you had it coming, but I wish you hadn’t.”

After a few more minutes, he went to check the battery level on the truck, just for something to do. He stepped out the door just in time to see a brilliant flash of light over the eastern horizon, followed a second or two later by a low, thundering boom.

“Looks like there was a show, after all,” he told Marquez’s body, as he came back inside. “I hope the boss is ok. I know he says he can resurrect, but between you and me, I’m not sure he’s…you know…all there, sometimes. He says some crazy shit. Like, one time he told me that eyeliner he wears is cause ancient gypsies wore it to scare away evil spirits.”

He glanced around, then spoke in a lower tone, as if there were any danger of being overheard.

“That’s another thing. I don’t think evil spirits are even real. And why would eyeliner scare them if they were? I always thought it was kind of pretty. Don’t you tell the boss I said that, though. I mean, I know you can’t. But don’t. Just in case.”

He paced to and fro till he tired of that, then he sat down and leaned against the pillar, stretching his legs out before him. After a while, the silence began to oppress him, and he cast about in his mind for another topic of conversation.

“I wonder if I’ll get to meet the boss’s boyfriend,” he said, to his unhearing companion. “You won’t, cause you’re dead, but I hope I will. I bet he’s cool. I wonder if he’s one of our guys. Wait…no. It can’t be one of us. The boss always said we were the most nauseating pack of wild animals he’d ever laid eyes on. He’s probably some fancy city guy with a big place up in one of those tall buildings. Doesn’t that seem like the boss’s style?”

At that moment, Higgs materialized in a fiery flourish, causing Flaherty to jump to his feet with a start.

“Just waiting for you, boss,” Flaherty blurted, then he paused, frowning. “Hey, boss, what’s wrong? You’re all white. And you got tar all over your face.”

“What’s wrong—every fuckin’ thing,” Higgs growled. “That’s what’s wrong, Flaherty. Every fuckin’ goddamn thing that could be wrong! Fuck!”

“I’m so sorry, boss,” Flaherty said, trembling under his master’s fierce eye. “I did everything just like you said, I promise.”

Higgs took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing his voice down to a calmer pitch. “I am not angry with you. You did a very good job. Light this asshole up so we can get out of here.”

Flaherty trotted over to the terminal and started the incineration sequence, then they both stood watching as the slab descended into the drawer.

“You want a drink?” Higgs asked, as the flame jets kicked on.

“Oh, wow, really?” Flaherty said, wide-eyed. “Sure, boss.”

“Good. Hope you like whiskey.”

With that, Higgs hooked an arm around his visibly startled subordinate, and they left the material plane.


	16. Rolling Over

“Poisoned,” Higgs slurred, letting his head drop back against the wall. “I think…I been poisoned.”

“Oh, no, boss!’” Flaherty exclaimed, jumping up. “We gotta get a doctor right now!”

“No, not—not like that, Flaherty, calm your fuckin’ shit,” Higgs said irritably, swatting his hands away. “I mean I been poisoned…in here. In my soul.”

Flaherty frowned doubtfully, but he sat back down. “How do you get poisoned in your soul, boss?”

“You know what I was, Flah…Flerf…fuck. What the fuck’s your Christian name, boy, I can’t keep sayin’ this mouthfulla Irish nonsense.”

“It’s John, boss.”

Higgs slammed a fist down on the table. “John! That’s a fuckin’ name! No bullshit about it, just a good, solid, man’s name. Anyone ever call you Johnny?”

“Never, boss.”

“Good, cause I’m gonna call you that and I don’t want it all used up and worn out. Listen, Johnny…what was I sayin’?”

“Uh. You said ‘you know what I was’ and then you asked me my name, boss.”

“You know what I was, Johnny?”

“No, boss.”

Higgs leaned on the table with both elbows and gazed unsteadily into his face. “I was a prophet. The herald of the apocalypse. I had the power of life and death in my hand, and I was gonna burn this whole world down, for her.”

“For who, boss?”

“For her!” Higgs said, waving his hand impatiently. “I had a purpose. A reason for being. Then that poison got all in my blood and ate me alive. Just…ruined me.”

Flaherty began to look worried again. “What poison, boss?”

Higgs laughed bitterly and spread his hands with a scornful flourish. “Love.”

“Love, boss?”

“Love. Love is fuckin’ poison. Sucks your life away. Makes you weak and pins you down, it…it rips up your insides and drills holes all through your head. But it don’t kill you. No, that’d be merciful and love is cruel, Johnny. It wants you to _suffer_. It wants to take everything you got and grind you down and crush out your dignity till you’re so low in the dirt you can’t even remember what it was like to be a man. Then it spits you out leaves you broken and cold and all alone. Nothin’ but…damaged goods.”

Higgs closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, letting his head rest on the wall again. Flaherty thought he was finished talking, and almost opened his mouth to ask a question, but Higgs spoke again.

“And it hurts,” he said, just above a whisper. He clutched convulsively at his chest armor with his black-gloved had. “It never stops hurting. But it won’t let you die.”

“But, boss, I’m sure he’ll come back,” Flaherty said, nearly in tears. “He’s gotta come back.”

Higgs shook his head slowly, without opening his eyes. “He got nothin’ to keep him here, now. No…no reason to stay.”

He slumped forward and Flaherty jumped up again, just managing to catch him before he tumbled face-first onto the floor. Supporting him as best he could—the boss wasn’t a small man and he was heavy as fuck in all his body armor and shit—he dragged him the few feet to the safehouse bed, where he laid him down clumsily.

Higgs groaned and rolled onto his side, but made no other objection. Flaherty stood over him, looking anxiously down into his hollow, haggard face. He was sure the boss couldn’t be this drunk from that little bit of whiskey he’d had, and he was beginning to believe there was another cause for his deathly pallor and apparent delirium.

He’d been saying things that made Flaherty worry for his sanity since the night he came to get him at the incinerator, but it had gotten much worse in the past couple of days. He’d been getting paler and weaker, too. Seeming to waste away with bizarre rapidity, particularly for a man who’d never been the slightest bit ill or even fatigued in the years Flaherty had known him.

“Boss,” he said, laying a hand on his shoulder to shake him cautiously. “You’re real sick. You oughta let me call a doctor.”

“No doctor,” Higgs growled, shrugging off his hand. “I ain’t sick. I ain’t…”

Flaherty sighed. He knew there was no point in arguing with the boss and would only risk his wrath by doing so. But if he wouldn’t let him get a doctor, he would at least look after him while he slept, in case he got worse. He unbuttoned his black uniform top and rolled it into a little ball, which he placed under his head as a makeshift pillow, as he lay down on the safehouse floor.

The floor wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but it wasn’t much worse than the cot he’d been sleeping on in the shelter. Plus, the safehouse was warm and clean, and had bright lights and interesting things to look at. It was small, but it was probably the nicest building Flaherty had ever been allowed inside. He wondered if all the UCA places looked this nice. Maybe that was why the boss joined them.

He especially liked the glossy, brand-new pieces of equipment that were displayed in glass cases in the wall, instead of packed up in cargo containers or ammo crates. There were some weapons in there he recognized, but mostly the things looked like porter gear. There was even a Bridges jumpsuit on an armor rack. He’d seen the boss summon and dismiss enough different disguises to know he had no need to keep a bunch of gear anywhere, so maybe this stuff belonged to his boyfriend.

But that would mean the boss’s boyfriend was a porter, which Flaherty could not imagine. Those idiots made _him_ look intellectually gifted. They didn’t know their ass from a MULE scanner and he’d swear they dropped more cargo than they actually delivered anywhere.

Everyone knew the only porter who’d ever been worth a damn was Sam Bridges. Everyone also knew he was dead. But everyone had known the boss was dead, and here he was. Hm. Flaherty laughed at himself for even entertaining the idea. No fucking way was Sam Bridges the boss’s boyfriend. Even if he was alive somehow, he was literally Demens enemy number one.

He’d certainly earned that status. Flaherty had once had the honor of being personally punched in the face by the man up at the canyon. Motherfucker took out the whole camp singlehanded, then packed up all their weapons and gear into their own truck and drove off with it. Like he was making a trip to the grocery store.

A squadron of heavily-armed Demens on their home turf against one jackoff in a jumpsuit, and he’d beaten them fair and square. Didn’t kill a single one of ‘em, either. Left them all tied up like Christmas presents for the boss, waiting to be unwrapped. And they’d caught hell for it, too.

The boss had rounded everyone up, snarling about how Sam Bridges had knocked out every man in the camp and took their gear, and had they even managed to shoot him? Even once? Everyone was scared shitless but they had to say no, cause there was no point trying to lie to him. He laughed for a long time, like he was losing his mind or something, and Flaherty was sure they were all gonna get fed to the BTs, but then he just told them to go get some rest. The boss was unpredictable like that.

Volatile was a better word, but Flaherty didn’t like to let on he’d been learning things from books now he knew how to read, so he said unpredictable if it ever came up. Erratic, capricious, changeable. Those were all good ones, too. Unhinged was the best word for describing the boss, now. Flaherty had been with the Demens since he was sixteen and he’d never seen him like this.

He couldn’t make heads or tails of most of the crazy shit the boss had been saying, about talking to dead ladies on their Beaches and human babies being used like high-speed network routers. Seemed like he meant the BBs, but even Flaherty knew that wasn’t how BBs worked. He sure hoped it wasn’t, poor things. Putting them in those mobile fish tanks to sniff out BTs was bad enough to think about, without imagining network signals running through their little brains all day, too.

He’d been able to sift what was obviously deranged nonsense from the boss’s talk, however, and had put together a few important facts about that night. One, something bad had happened. Two, that something had made the boss’s boyfriend go somewhere far away. And three, the boss didn’t think he was coming back. He was pretty busted up about it, so maybe that had something to do with his current condition.

This was more than a broken heart, though. Whatever the stories liked to say about people wasting away for love, that just didn’t happen in real life. Maybe fancy ladies in castles in the olden days hadn’t heard about tuberculosis and assumed they were just coughing out their feelings, but Flaherty knew better. The boss was real-life sick and getting worse. He made up his mind. He was gonna call a doctor and damn the consequences. The boss couldn’t kill him if he was too sick to move, anyway.

He waited a long time, till he was sure the boss was out cold, then he shook him and tried to talk to him a few times, to make extra sure. Getting no response, he stepped over to the table and picked up the black cufflinks. These were Bridges cuffs, so they’d have access to any Bridges terminal on the chiral network, plus anyone carrying another pair of cuffs.

He touched the panel on the side and the blue screen popped up, offering him all kinds of useful functions for cargo organization and weapons management, but there was no network signal at all. The safehouse must be EM shielded. Smart, but inconvenient at the current moment. He’d have to risk the noise of the elevator and go outside.

He was buttoning up his uniform top, when the boss stirred. Flaherty stuffed the cufflinks into his pocket and tried to look casual, but the boss didn’t turn over or look at him.

“Where you goin’, Johnny?” Higgs asked, in a heartbreakingly feeble voice.

“I gotta get some air, boss,” Flaherty said, feeling a pang of guilt for the lie, but reminding himself he had to help the boss, against his wishes or not. “I never lived underground like this. I’m…claustrophobic.”

“Get your gear on,” Higgs murmured. “It’s rainin’ cats and dogs out there.”

“Yes sir, boss.”

Flaherty didn’t question how he knew it was raining. The boss always knew about rain. He concentrated on hastily pulling on his VOG mask and gloves and rubberized hood, then slipped out the door before the boss could ask any more questions.

When the elevator emerged at ground level, he saw that cats and dogs had been an understatement. This was, like, big-F Flood rain. The kind that drowned all the sinners but Noah, cause he’d thought to get into nautical engineering before it was popular. He took all those people and animals with him on that boat and they survived the Flood, just to get obliterated in the Stranding. Kinda sad.

He got the cuffs out and put them on, then opened the screen again. The network connected right up this time, but a lot of the names on the contact list were grey, meaning the connections were out on their end. Flaherty remembered something vague about that being what they were doing in Capital Knot that night, but mostly no one explained anything to him. He just drove the trucks and stood watch like he was told.

There were a bunch of doctors on the list. He flipped through their profiles, eliminating the ones who were doctors of psychology, history, paleontology, geology…good lord, how many kinds of doctor could there be? Out of around twenty, he found five that were the real, medicine kind.

The first was listed as Heartman, but he was disconnected, so no go. The doctor at Mountain Knot was offline, too. One was at Lake Knot, which was connected and close by, but she was listed as a naturopath, and Flaherty didn’t like the sound of that. There was one called Deadman at Capital Knot, but Flaherty vetoed him based on the absurdity of trying to get the boss over to Eastern without a boat or Beach powers of his own.

On his way back to the naturopath’s profile, he swiped over Fragile’s and paused. He was pretty sure the boss and her had really been something, once, no matter what the boss said about it. He’d tricked her into blowing up Middle Knot for good enough reasons, but then he’d done that thing to her with the timefall, too. People who hadn’t got hurt didn’t go out of their way to be cruel like that.

As he was clumsily attempting to swipe away from her profile, he mistakenly hit the call function. Shit. He closed it hastily and was able to disconnect before the link was opened. Much to his immediate dismay, however, the cuffs pinged with a return communication almost instantly.

“What do you want, Higgs,” Fragile’s lilting voice came through, crackling with low-level interference from the timefall. “What the fuck are you doing calling me?”

Flaherty hesitated. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. It was an accident. I never used Bridges cuffs before.”

“Who is this?” she demanded. “Why do you have Higgs’ cuffs?

“My name’s Flaherty, ma’am. I’m…a friend of his.”

“Higgs doesn’t have any friends.”

“I work for him. He’s real sick, ma’am,” Flaherty pleaded. “I just took his cuffs to try and call a doctor, I swear.”

“Higgs doesn’t get sick, either, asshole. Where the fuck is he?”

“He’s down in the safehouse.”

“The safehouse…Sam’s safehouse? At Higgs’ shelter?”

Sam’s safehouse! Aha! Sam Bridges must be the boss’s boyfriend! Oh…unless it was a coincidence. Sam was a pretty common name.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you two alone?”

“Yes, ma’am. I think he’s sleeping right now, but he’s real bad.”

“We will see about that. Don’t try to fuck with me—what is your name again?”

“Flaherty, ma’am. John Flaherty.”

“Don’t try to fuck with me, John Flaherty. I am armed. If I see anyone but you, I will shoot you. Got it?”

Flaherty felt dubious regarding this woman’s ability to outdraw him, but it wouldn’t do any good to say so, especially since he really was alone, and he had no intention of giving her a reason to try.

“Understood, ma’am.”

The connection dropped off and a split second later, Fragile was standing before him beneath her spinning umbrella, with a machine pistol trained on his hooded face. She was so much smaller than he’d expected that he almost laughed, but that would have been unwise at the moment, so he put his hands up instead.

“Hands on the back of your head!” she barked. “Turn around!”

Flaherty had been detained and frisked by UCA soldiers and security men about a thousand times, and knew the drill. Better than she did, since she removed his sidearm, but failed to discover his boot knife.

“I have a boot knife, ma’am,” he said helpfully. “Right boot.”

Her gloved hand slid down his calf and withdrew the knife, which she tossed away into the black gravel.

“Aw, come on,” he protested. “The timefall’s gonna make swiss cheese out of it.”

“Shut the fuck up!” she hissed, jabbing his back with the barrel of her gun. “Into the safehouse. Nice and slow. Don’t talk unless I ask you a question.”

Flaherty obediently preceded her onto the platform, where she keyed in the code she apparently knew, then rode the elevator down standing behind him, keeping the gun pressed to his spine.

“Over there,” she said, once they were inside the private room. “Face the wall. Keep your hands on your head.”

He did as he was told, but his arms were getting tired and he hoped she’d drop the routine soon. He heard her go over to the bed, and then he heard the boss groan. Flaherty ventured a peek at what was going on. She had rolled the boss onto his back and had the gun pointed at him, now.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” Higgs said in a low, rasping voice. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Shut up,” Fragile snapped. “Don’t fucking call me sweetheart.”

She slid the gun into her hip holster and peeled the glossy, black glove off her right hand. With the gloved hand, she pushed up the eyelids of his right eye, then the left, holding them open to check for something—Flaherty had no idea what—then she stuck her bare fingers under the collar of his uniform top and held them there for a few seconds.

“Don’t bother calling a doctor,” she said, turning to Flaherty as she pulled her glove back on. “He’s sick, but there is nothing a doctor can do to help him.”

“What’s wrong with him, ma’am? What’ll help him?”

“He needs a BT. A few of them, probably.”

“What do you mean?” Flaherty said, taken aback. “What would he need a BT for?”

“He needs—take that shit off. I will not talk to a mask. He needs a BT because he is starving.”

Flaherty undid the cloak and dropped it, then pulled off the VOG mask.

“Starving? But he’s been…eating. I think he has. There’s water and ration bars and all kinds of nonperishables here.”

“He can eat if he likes, but food doesn’t do much for him, anymore. He needs pure energy. The kind he can only get from BTs. Or a voidout.”

“Oh.” Flaherty swallowed hard. “Shit.”

“You don’t have DOOMs,” she said, eyeing him up and down.

“No, ma’am.”

“Of course not,” she sighed. “I suppose I will have to do it, then.”

“Do what, ma’am?”

“I will have to take him to get something to eat,” she said, turning back to Higgs. “Get up, asshole.”

“So fuckin’…impolite,” Higgs mumbled, struggling to push himself up. “You’re in my home, missy.”

“This is Sam’s home, and don’t call me missy. Can you stand on your own?”

Higgs got laboriously to his feet, wobbled, and collapsed on the floor. Flaherty would have rushed to catch him, but Fragile had her machine pistol out and pointed at him before he could move a muscle. Huh. Maybe he was wrong about her being able to outdraw him. He put his hands back on his head, watching warily as she crouched beside Higgs.

Higgs opened his eyes and grinned up at her. “We gotta stop meetin’ this way.”

“I would prefer we didn’t meet any way at all, but here we are. Can you handle a jump?”

“You the one—jumpin’ us?” he panted, as she took him by both wrists and pulled him up to a sitting position.

“Looks like I have no choice.” She cast a stern eye on Flaherty. “Don’t use those cuffs again, you understand? Don’t do anything. Just sit here and be good until we get back.”

“Hey, you don’t get to boss Johnny around,” Higgs protested drunkenly. “Only I get to do that. Johnny, you go ahead and watch movies or look at pornography or whatever you kids like to do these days. Have some beer. Make yourself at home.”

Fragile rolled her eyes. “Come on, Higgs. Focus. You remember how to do this?”

“Just like old times.”

Flaherty stood watching uneasily as the woman set her umbrella spinning over her head. Then she put her hands on the boss’s face, and the boss put his hands on her shoulders. Flaherty almost turned away, thinking they were going to kiss each other, but they touched their foreheads together and closed their eyes. Then…nothing. They just sat there like that.

“Is something supposed to—”

With a rushing hiss of displaced atmosphere and a shower of black particles, Fragile and Higgs tore out of the material plane.

“—happen. Oh. Well, I guess I’ll see you later, boss,” Flaherty grumbled. “Hope she doesn’t get any ideas about revenge. You know, once she’s got you alone and unarmed.”

He didn’t like the sound of anything that Fragile woman had said, and he especially didn’t like how she talked to the boss. But he’d seemed to trust her and he went with her willingly, so there was nothing for Flaherty to do but wait around and hope he came back alive.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked about miserably. Then it occurred to him that he had a clean, warm room all to himself, plenty of Timefall Porter, and access to pretty much every film ever made, right on that Bridges terminal. This cheered him up considerably. He was still worried about the boss, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with watching movies and enjoying a beer while you worry.


	17. Easy Way Out

“Ok, stand still,” Higgs said. “Keep your eyes closed. Can you feel ‘em?”

“Yeah,” the tiny girl standing beside him replied, keeping her eyes dutifully shut.

“Where are they?”

She pointed. “Over there.”

“Good. How far?”

“Ummm. Across the river. Almost to the weather station.”

“Very good. How many?”

“I…I don’t know. A lot.”

“You do know.”

“But I don’t. I get them all mixed up if there’s too many and I can’t tell them apart.”

“No, you keep those eyes closed,” he said firmly. “Don’t be afraid. Feel them. Let them feel you, too. Then tell me how many.”

The girl sighed heavily, but did as she’d been told.

“Fifteen…sixteen,” she said, after a pause. “There’s sixteen.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Sixteen.”

“Excellent. You can open your eyes now,” Higgs said, looking down at her. “How you doin’, you cold?”

“No, I’m never cold.” She clutched his sleeve to steady herself as she stood up on tiptoe, peering out over the surrounding terrain. “Oh look, the river! It’s just like I saw it in my head.”

The area in which they were standing was comprised of huge swathes of dark-grey basalt columns, which stretched for miles in either direction, giving an eerie, alien appearance to the landscape. These bizarrely geometric land formations rose and fell in steep inclines and sudden drops, and were always slick with timefall. Treacherous, even to the experienced traveler and deadly to the unwary, but no hindrance to those able to cross any physical distance with a simple thought.

“Could you get back here on your own, if you had to?”

The girl bit her lip thoughtfully. “Mmm. No. I don’t feel it yet.”

“You will. You just have to find your connection.”

“I know,” she said brightly. “I’m making one.”

A hint of a smile turned up the right corner of his mouth. “Are you, now.”

“Yep. This is where you brought me to count the BTs without seeing them. There were sixteen. It smelled like wet rocks and—” She paused and wrinkled her little nose. “Something bad. Like rubber burning. Gross.”

“That’s the goddamn highway,” Higgs said, glancing irritably behind them to the east. “Fuckin’ blight on the landscape.”

“Uncle Sam says people need the highways to get places.”

“People who can’t use the Beach have to travel around in vehicles or on foot. They build roads to make it faster and easier.”

The girl eyed him skeptically. “There’s people who can’t use the Beach?”

“You know there are, you little rascal. Your uncle Sam’s one of ‘em.”

“Yeah-huh he can,” she contended. “He goes through the Beach all the time.”

“Not on his own. I have to send him or take him with me, otherwise he’d have to walk or drive places, like everybody else.”

Her large, pale-blue eyes went wide. “What! But that would take forever!”

“That’s how it is for people without DOOMs like ours. Your uncle Sam’s got it and so do your aunties and your momma, but no one in the world has it like you and me.”

“And I got DOOMs cause of genetics,” she chirped.

“That’s right,” he laughed. “I guess you been listening to your aunties, then.”

“Yep. Auntie Lockne says I’m a very good listener.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, seating himself on the flat, hexagonal top of a rock pillar and lifting her into his lap. “What else does she say?”

“She says I’m lucky cause I got my momma’s looks and my daddy’s brains, but not to tell momma that.”

“Wise counsel. But I see you got no problem tellin’ me you’re lucky you didn’t get my looks.”

“I don’t want to look like a boy!” she giggled, pretending to resist as he rubbed his scruffy jaw against her soft cheek. “Stop it, daddy, that tickles!”

“Stop what?” he asked innocently. “I’m not doin’ anything.”

“Your beard’s tickling me!”

“I think you’re makin’ unfounded assumptions, miss,” he said, nuzzling her neck with the coarse hair on his chin. “How do you know it ain’t your own beard ticklin’ you.”

“I don’t—got a beard!” she gasped, through a fit of laughter. “Quit it! I’m gonna pee!”

Higgs leaned back with an exaggerated grimace. “Alright, alright, no need to resort to extreme measures. I gotta get you back to your momma soon, sugar beet. You ready to go?”

“No,” the girl pouted. “I want to stay with you.”

“With me? Why would you wanna come to my boring old hole in the ground when you got those big windows and all the pretty city lights at your momma's house?”

“I don’t like the city,” she said, looking off in the direction of Lake Knot. “It’s full of people.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“They’re always talking and doing stuff. It’s scary and loud and I can’t sleep good there.”

The briefest expression of pain flickered across his face, and was gone before she turned back to him.

“You and your momma are goin’ back to your aunties’ in a couple days,” he said encouragingly. “You like livin’ in the mountains, don’t you?”

She looked down to play with the strap on his chest armor. “Yeah, but…I want to live with you _and_ momma. Why can’t we all live there together?”

“Sweetheart, there’s no way your aunties’ house could fit all of us. It just ain’t big enough for seven people.”

“But it is! Lou can stay in my room with me, and you and uncle Sam can have the downstairs room, and auntie Målingen doesn’t even need a room so she doesn’t count.”

“I think she’d beg to differ,” Higgs laughed. “But the truth is, grown-ups are complicated. We need space to ourselves and we don’t like livin’ with a lot of other grown-ups.”

“But auntie Lockne says people who love each other should try as hard as they can to be together. She says people being all alone is what makes them get sick and do bad things.”

“She’s right, but we’re not alone. Look at me, Léonie. We are not alone. You know how you and me can both use the Beach?”

She nodded.

“That means even when you’re in the city or up at the mountain, and I’m way down at my place, I’m still as close to you as I would be if we lived in the same house. It doesn’t matter where in the world either of us are, because there’s no such thing as distance. Not between you and me.”

The girl burst into tears and threw her little arms around his neck. “I love you, daddy.”

He held her tightly, pressing kisses into her silky, pale-blonde hair. “I love you, too, baby. I love you so much.”

After a long moment, she stopped sniffling and leaned back to look up into his face. He reached up and wiped a black tear from her cheek, then gave a start as his hand was struck sharply away.

“What the fuck, Higgs!” Fragile demanded, in a shaky, half-hysterical voice. “How the fuck did you do that!”

Higgs sat stunned, staring at her in blank confusion, The barrel of her machine pistol was digging into his neck, just above his chest armor, and there were chiral allergy tears rolling down her face. Not tar, but tinted with black, so they left grey trails on her wax-white cheeks.

“How’d I…do what?”

“You know what you did, you fucking piece of shit! Why would you do that to me!”

“I didn’t,” he pleaded, blinking heavily as he attempted to keep her face in focus. “I didn’t mean to do anything.”

“Yes, you did. You made me see things, just like you did when you broke into my house. I don’t know what kind of twisted game you are playing but stay out of my fucking head or I will kill you and I will keep killing you, as many times as it takes to make it stick!”

“I swear, I didn’t…do anything to you,” he mumbled, his head beginning to droop. “Must be our DOOMs…some kinda reaction.”

She let go of his collar and let him fall backward onto the ground, then sat down beside him, angrily dashing the tears away.

“You didn’t mean to show me those things, then,” she said hoarsely, but in a calmer tone. “When you put your mask on me that night.”

“Didn’t even know I could. What’d you see?”

She shook her head. “Horrible things. Blood raining from the sky. The whole world on fire. Lockne and Målingen think it was what the EE showed you. A vision of the extinction.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Go to hell.”

“Pretty sure this is it,” he drawled. “Thought it’d be hotter, to be honest.”

There was a long silence. He tried to lift his head to look at her, but a wave of dizziness forced him to abandon the effort.

“You see the same thing this time?”

“No. Something much worse.”

“You saw Sam in the shower?”

Fragile laughed in spite of herself, then slapped his arm with the back of her gloved hand. “Shut the fuck up. This isn’t funny.”

“You hear me laughin’?” he said indignantly. “I don’t like you seein’ him naked any more’n you do.”

“It wasn’t Sam in the shower, you asshole. Stop trying to make me like you again. It’s not going to happen.”

“I would never, and I resent the accusation. Hey, just outta curiosity, you bring me up here to see if freezin’ to death will kill me permanently? Cause if so, I can save you the bother.”

“I brought you up here because it’s isolated,” she said, standing up to brush the snow off her black leggings. “A voidout won’t hurt anyone.”

He rolled his head to one side, then the other, looking out over the pristine, white peaks towering around them. “Isolated is right, but you must be halfway to hypothermia by now. You should get out of here before—wait, what the fuck you mean, a voidout?”

“Don’t be a child, Higgs,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Fragile, tell me what the fuck we’re doing up here. I swear to god, I will—”

“You won’t do anything,” she cut him off. “You won’t be strong enough to move until it’s all over.”

He dropped his voice into its deep, resonant snarl. “Don’t you fuckin’ do this! I won’t let you go! I won’t let you cross over, you hear me?”

“If I void out, my body will be destroyed. No BT. No cord. I go straight to the other side.”

“Why, god damn it! Why would you do it? Why would you want to end your life like this?”

“There is nothing for me, here. I could struggle on, helping people who won’t help each other, doing work that won’t make any difference in the long run, till I am old and bitter and worn down to nothing. But I am tired of the world. Tired of fighting this fight alone. If it makes you feel better, I was going to die eventually, no matter what. This is just the easy way out.”

Higgs managed to get hold of her ankle as she moved to walk away. She tried to kick him off, but he clung to her with all his remaining strength.

“Léonie!”

She froze, staring down at him, her pale-blue eyes wide and her face as white as the snow around them. “What the fuck did you say? Where did you hear that name?”

“I saw her…” he rasped. “Know you…saw too. Our daughter…”

Her face faded in his darkening vision, and all went suddenly black. Much to his annoyance, Higgs found himself plunged immediately into the Seam. Sam seemed to like the place, but he found its lulling weight and sleepy silence oppressive. Also he couldn’t see very well here, and he hated that.

He lolled about aimlessly at first, trying to accustom himself to the darkness, the disorienting feeling of semi-weightlessness, and the bizarre sensation of being deep underwater, but apparently able to breathe. And all that on top of having to will oneself in any particular direction with no limbs where they’re supposed to be and no body to give sensory feedback.

After a while, however, he got his general bearings and was more or less able to tell up from down. The darker area was the sky, and the bright part was the snow. Perfect. He propelled himself clumsily downward toward that.

Sure enough, there was a black, Higgs-shaped blob, silhouetted against the white. It was floating about three feet above the snowy ground, not moving upward or downward. Simply suspended. Like a waterlogged corpse, whose density pretty much matched that of the surrounding liquid.

He got too eager and glided right past it, whacked into a snowbank, then had to figure out how to turn around again. This was a lot more work than he’d anticipated, but he finally got himself wheeled back around to where he could see his body.

Ok, easy does it. He propelled his disembodied consciousness cautiously forward this time, taking care not to overshoot, overshot by a little, managed to swoop down and…he was in!

Fragile rematerialized in the ruined city, just below the crest of a steep ridge, fifty meters or so from where she had left Higgs lying unconscious. Far enough to prevent him controlling the BTs, but close enough to ensure he’d be caught in the voidout. Her skin prickled all over, sensing their proximity. Strong ones. Much hungrier and more aware than the older ones down in the valley.

She stood still, waiting, until one flickered into view a few meters away. It hung there moaning and shivering, its umbilical cord writhing about overhead. Finally, it sensed her. It made a horrid, guttural sound, and its coiling umbilical cord began to snake toward her. One by one, black, tar-filled handprints were stamped into the snow, massive and heavy, like the slow beating of a hideous drum. This was it. Now or never. She forced down the instinct screaming in her blood to flee and took a step forward.

With a roar and a shudder of flame, Higgs was suddenly before her. She leapt back, but he already had his arm around her neck. Desperately, she attempted to jump anyway, but he had always been able to suppress her DOOMs abilities when he touched her. Unable to access her power, she screamed hoarsely, beating at him with her fists till her knuckles bled. He stood unmoved. Invincible. There was no escape, now. He’d never let her go. Never let her die.

Crushed and utterly defeated, she simply collapsed. He caught her easily, as if she weighed nothing at all, and held her in his arms, pressed close against his chest. Even through her tears of rage and grief, she was immediately aware of his familiar scent. Leather and ozone, and something metallic. He had her firmly restrained, but it almost felt like an embrace. The first time he’d done so in all the years they’d known each other.

“Thanks for bringin’ me up here,” he said, in his languid, taunting cadence. “Turns out a repatriation worked almost as well as a voidout. I’m not at a hundred percent, but as you can see, I’m more than a match for you.”

“Fuck you,” she sobbed, her voice half-muffled by his uniform top. “Let me go.” 

Higgs ignored this. “Y’know, Johnny was worried you were takin’ me somewhere to kill me. But killin’ yourself and forcin’ me to watch your voidout…that’s some cold-blooded shit. I’m impressed.”

“I don’t care what you think. I fucking hate you.”

“Well, no you don’t. I don’t even buy that shit anymore, so you can drop it. You’re angry at me, and you should be. What I did to you was colossally fucked up, to put it mildly. But you don’t hate me, you just want to hurt me back. The way I hurt you.”

She struggled weakly, trying in vain to push him away. “Let go of me, Higgs.”

“Not a chance, darlin’,” he purred in her ear. “You can’t be trusted.”

He reached out his hand and dragged the BT toward them, snarling like a trapped beast, helpless against his irresistible power. Fragile tried to twist herself free, but Higgs held her fast, too, pulling the BT closer, till it was inches from her face. Her stomach turned and her body trembled with freezing terror. She squeezed her eyes shut, but it was still there. She couldn’t even blot the sight of it from her inner eye.

“This here is not a toy,” Higgs said. “You play with one of these, you’re fuckin’ around with power that don’t belong to you. The dead are mine.”

The BT gave a bloodcurdling wail. Fragile’s eyes snapped open and she watched, petrified, unable to look away. Higgs had taken hold of the thing's cord. His breath hitched and she felt him shudder all over, his heart pounding and his chest heaving against hers, with rapid, panting breaths. The BT thrashed and shrieked and howled, then it went suddenly limp. The cord was severed. Its flickering form drifted slowly upward, its final, echoing cry dying away as it dispersed into the air.

“Jesus Christ,” Fragile breathed. “That’s what you do? You grab them and just…suck them dry?”

Higgs looked down at her, flashing a wicked, white-toothed smile. “You’re makin’ it sound more lascivious than necessary, but that’s about the size of it, yes. I haven’t had to take one in a while, though. It appears I’m a bit…off balance, at the moment.”

“Where is Sam? Where did you take him, after you got rid of the Demens?”

“He ain’t on this side,” Higgs said, releasing her abruptly. “Don’t matter where. He ain’t comin’ back.”

“How is he supposed to come back, Higgs? He can’t get back from a Beach without one of us. You know that as well as I do.”

“He’s got a way back from the one I left him on. If he was going to use it, he would have.”

“You are such a fucking idiot!” she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “You know he loves you, right? He loves you so much that it’s frankly sickening to see you two together. Don’t expect me to believe he crossed over and left you for good. That would never happen.”

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Higgs growled. “I don’t want him to come back.”

Fragile stared at him, aghast. “Don’t want him back…but you love him.”

“Of fuckin’ course I love him! I love him so much it hurts to breathe sometimes and every minute I spend without him is pure, undiluted agony. You want some more melodramatic nonsense, or you think you got it?”

“I get it, thank you,” she said tartly. “So if you love him so much, how can you say you don’t want him back?”

“He had a family, Fragile. A wife and a little baby. What kinda man would I be if I wanted him to choose me over them? What kind of vile, selfish creature would willingly separate the man he loves from his family? I know what you think of me, but even I have more honor than that.”

“Higgs, you are acting insane, even for you. Sam’s wife and child died, a long time ago. She killed herself and the unborn baby and voided out half a city. That was the reason he disappeared for all those years.”

“I know the story better than you do, sweetheart,” he sneered. “I also happen to know it’s all bullshit. What really happened…you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Higgs blinked. “What—are you serious?”

“Yes. I was planning on being dead, so I don’t really have anywhere to be. Tell me the real story.”

“Fragile, I just stopped you from killing yourself after we both saw a vision of the future in which we had a child. An actual child. You and me. And you want to talk about Sam’s family?”

“That wasn’t real, Higgs. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was a vision of some alternative future, but it’s not ours.”

“I dunno. It felt pretty real to me.”

Fragile crossed her arms impatiently. “You’re right. It did. You want to fuck me?”

“Christ, no.”

“And I don’t want to fuck you. Hence, we are not going to have a child. Mystery solved. Tell me about Sam’s wife and baby.”

“Alright, but let’s get back to the safehouse, before you really do freeze to death. Also, I’m pretty sure I gave Johnny permission to watch pornography and, uh…it’s probably best to put a stop to that.”


	18. Nobody Loves Me Like You

High on a rocky peak, overlooking Timefall Farm to the west, and the old South Knot ruins to the east, amid the forbidding towers of black stone, the white mushroom of a timefall shelter had bloomed. It stood upon a rather flat, smooth-topped boulder, and whatever enterprising traveler had undertaken to scale the treacherous volcanic rocks to erect it appeared to have done so recently, since it was in fairly good repair.

Inside the ring of cover provided by the umbrella-like structure, a girl sat cross-legged on the accommodating stone. She was fourteen years old or so, tall for her age, and slender almost to the point of thinness. Her pale-blonde hair was long and wavy, and worn in a braid down her back, though a few tendrils of it had got free and fallen into her face, which they were always doing, no matter how well she thought she had secured them.

At first glance, her black trekking jumpsuit would have appeared to be of Bridges issue, but a keen-eyed observer would quickly detect its far superior quality. All the visible metallic details were gold-toned, rather than the standard steel-grey, and it had clearly been tailored specially for her slight frame. Even an observer not possessed of any very extraordinary ocular gifts would immediately perceive the decidedly not-Bridges logo, stamped in shining gold upon the black fabric of the right shoulder, which depicted the roaring head of a lion.

She had just tossed her hair out of her face for the thousandth time, and was in the act of raising a pair of range-finding binoculars to her eyes, when there was a hiss and a rush of displaced air. This singular auditory phenomenon was accompanied by a shower of black sparks, and instantly thereafter, a woman. The dullest-eyed donkey of an observer would have known at a glance that these two were mother and daughter.

The woman was shorter in height than the girl, but just as slender—though without the same spare, coltish appearance, as her figure had attained the feminine fullness that comes with adulthood. Her hair was short, but it was the same pale blonde as the girl’s, and had the same propensity toward wavy wildness. The most striking differences in their features were the girl’s lips, which were firmer and less full than her mother’s, her nose, which was longer and thinner, and their eyes.

The mother’s were an icy, almost grey-toned blue, while the blue of the daughter’s eyes was of a deeper, more vibrant hue. The mother’s heavy, long-lashed lids gave her a perpetually dreamlike look, but the daughter’s eyes were almond shaped and keen, and seemed always to be sizing things up, as if every object and person they fell upon were being entered into some vast, internal calculation.

“Hi,” the woman said, as she stepped up behind the girl.

“Hey,” the girl replied, without turning to look at her.

The woman paused, apparently uncertain how to proceed. The girl continued peering through the binoculars at the valley below and offered no encouragement.

“So…what are you up to?” the woman ventured, after a moment.

“Scanning that MULE camp for stolen cargo. Looks clean so far.”

The woman seated herself cross-legged beside her daughter and looked at her face in profile. An infinitely motherly expression—that peculiar look of pride and joy, mingled with a kind of wistful sadness—passed over her delicate features.

“Léonie, I only want what is best for you,” she said, laying a black-gloved hand on her shoulder. “I want you to be happy.”

“You mean you want me to be normal,” the girl answered sullenly, as she adjusted her lens zoom.

“No, Léonie, that is not what I mean,” the woman frowned. “I love you just as you are. But I think it would be good for you if your life could be more normal, at least for a while. I want you to have the same opportunities other children have, to make friends and make mistakes, and just…enjoy being young.”

The girl lowered the binoculars and squinted doubtfully at her. “Did you enjoy being young?”

“Well, no,” the woman said, with a rueful chuckle. “My papa used to say I was born an old woman. I was always taking on far too much responsibility. Maybe I believed I could fill my mother’s place as his support and partner, and that would make him happy again. I know now that I would have made him much happier by allowing myself to be a child.”

“I can’t allow myself to be something I’m not,” the girl replied bitterly. “I don’t get to be a child and make mistakes. My mistakes kill people.”

“This world is full of death, my love. Anyone’s mistakes could get someone killed.”

“Not like mine. Some dock hand forgetting to secure the rigging won’t kill ten-thousand people in a voidout. I’m…a walking nuclear bomb.”

“No, you are not,” her mother said sternly. “Look at me, Léonie. Don’t you ever say that again. You are not a weapon, you are a human being. You are my child.”

The girl’s lower lip began to tremble and a black tear rolled down her pale cheek. “Everyone knows what I am, mama. Whose daughter I am. People in the city are afraid of me. They stare at me and talk about me when they think I can’t hear. But I hear every word they say. I even hear what they don’t say. I can’t help it.”

“People are only afraid because they don’t understand you. You can change their minds. Help them understand.”

“But I don’t want to!” the girl said with sudden heat, dashing away her tears. “Why should I have to accommodate their ignorance? The fact that their pathetic little ant-brains can’t grasp basic realities of the universe is not my fault!”

“Léonie, sweetheart, I am only trying to—”

“I know mama, and I appreciate it, I really do. But the fact is, I’m not like them and I don’t want to be. I don’t want to go to a school in the city, with teachers who will talk down to me even though they couldn’t tell a gauge-boson from a fermion if their lives depended on it. Not to mention the idiot students, who are no better than voidouts waiting to—” She broke off, seeing the pained expression on her mother’s face. “I didn’t—I’m sorry, mama. I get frustrated and I say things I don’t mean. I just wanted you to understand how I feel.”

“You are very much your father’s daughter,” her mother sighed, reaching up to brush back a strand of flaxen hair from her forehead. “There is so much of him in you. Sometimes…I worry that you will leave me behind.”

“No, mama, never,” the girl said earnestly. “I love you more than anything in the world. But I don’t want to try to be normal and make friends. When I’m out here with papa and uncle Sam, people aren’t scared of me. They’ve seen BTs firsthand and know what happens if they get caught out in the timefall. They’re grateful for my DOOMs because they know I can protect them. If you send me to that city school, they will be afraid. They’ll all hate me and I’ll be alone.”

The woman looked at her for a moment, then shook her head, with a resigned smile. “I assume your father has told you what he thinks about it.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t use any words I’m allowed to repeat.”

“Then he told us the same thing. Well, it appears I am outvoted. I can’t oppose you, your father, and Sam.”

“What did uncle Sam say?”

“Something about how they chose not to send Louise to school in the city and she is just fine. I doubt they could have made her go if they tried, that little hellion.”

“Oh, is she home?” the girl asked, brightening up.

“No, she was off somewhere with those LIONs. I am sure you could catch up with them, if you want to go and play.”

“We’re not playing with them, mama, we’re training them to help people. They’re getting really good at paying attention to cargo labels and following the instructions all the way through.”

“I am glad you two are channeling their energy into something constructive. Just don’t let any of them get too friendly, if you know what I mean.”

The girl’s eyes went wide in horror. “Gross! Don’t be gross, mama, you’ll scar me for life!”

“Scarring you for life is my duty as your mother, my dear,” the woman said sweetly. “Don’t make me show you your birth video.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I will if you start bringing boys around. For cautionary and educational purposes, of course.”

The girl tossed her blonde head. “Please. Like I’d want to do anything with a stupid, stinking boy that would result in birth video material.”

“I don’t know how much interest you have in sex. I am only warning you that there will be reckonings.”

“Oh god, kill me,” the girl intoned, laying a hand across her brow. “My mother just said the word sex, out loud. _To my face_.”

“You young people are such prudes,” her mother laughed. “I thought about sex when I was your age. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Ok, that’s it. I’m out,” the girl proclaimed, hopping to her feet.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Lou. And a therapist.”

“You have a therapist.”

“She’s gonna need backup. Bye, mama. Love you.”

“Love you, too, sweetheart,” she said, as the girl leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Don’t you girls stay out too late, though. I will send your father and Sam to embarrass you.”

“Is that going to happen every time we jump together?” Fragile asked irritably, as she and Higgs reentered the material plane in the safehouse.

“Boss! You’re alive!” Flaherty exclaimed, starting up and hastily dismissing the floating video screen.

“Hey, Johnny,” Higgs said, then wheeled around to face Fragile. “I can’t fuckin’ believe you.”

“Me? What the fuck did I do?”

Flaherty frowned menacingly. “Yeah, what’d she do, boss?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you what,” Higgs declared, pointing an accusing finger at Fragile. “She wants to send our daughter to a city school!”

“Jesus Christ,” Fragile sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Flaherty blinked back and forth between them. “What…happened while you guys were out?”

“Some fuckin’ second-rate refrigerator repairman factory!” Higgs went on, ignoring him. “Our own child!”

Fragile threw her hands up in exasperation. “We don’t have a child, Higgs!”

“Not even born yet and her momma’s already planning to raise her in a pile of dirt, like a common garden slug,” Higgs said, shaking his head reproachfully. “Why don’t we just let Johnny teach her?”

“I don’t think I’d be very good at teaching, boss—”

“Hush, Johnny, grown-ups are talking. I want your word you’ll never pull that shit. And an apology for already trying to do it in the future, for that matter.”

“I am not apologizing to you! The girl in those visions doesn’t exist and she never will!”

Fragile’s fierce expression flickered and she turned abruptly away. Perhaps the most rational of the three present at that moment, Flaherty kept his mouth tightly shut and beat a swift retreat out the door.

“Fuck,” Higgs said, under his breath.

Fragile’s head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking, as if she was weeping. He’d made her cry a lot of times since they’d know each other, but this was different. She’d struck this blow herself, in a place she hadn’t been aware was exposed, and now she knew he knew it. He had absolutely no idea what to do. What would Sam do? Sam would do his Sam magic and make it all better somehow. Sam would…god damn it.

Ok. He could do this. He dismissed his armor and protective gear, leaving his very vulnerable human body shielded by nothing but a black thermal shirt and trekking pants. He physically trembled as he stepped cautiously toward her, but this must be the right thing. This is what Sam would do, he was sure of it.

Taking a deep breath to steel his nerves, he boldly put his bare hands on her shoulders, turned her around, and pulled her into his arms. She looked startled, but she didn’t stab or hit him, or even resist. She just buried her face in his chest and let him hold her. Encouraged by this result, he let his cheek rest on the top of her head.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

He found then, to his surprise and further bewilderment, that there were tears on his own face. He would have liked to pretend they were the result of the chiral allergy, but he knew where they were coming from. There was a black, aching ball of darkness way down deep in his gut, where he hid all the things he couldn’t let anyone see. It was there all the time, but mostly he was able to ignore it. He had to ignore it. If he wasn’t careful, it would grow and gather strength and eventually, the pain would tear him apart. But something else was happening inside him, too. Words were coming up and forcing themselves out, almost against his will.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you deserved,” he said, and the pain grew stronger. “I wanted to. I would’ve done anything to be that for you.” Stronger. His heart pounded and his chest began to ache under the strain. “Truth is, I was so fuckin’ broken, I didn’t even know how. But in my sick, fucked up way, I did love you.” Stronger still. Pressing on his lungs so he could hardly breathe. “I never stopped loving you.”

That was the final straw. The black ball of darkness swelled past his ability to contain it and tore its way out. Split him wide open, leaving him raw, breathless and shaking, but alive. Alive and almost…relieved. Yes, that was the word. It was relief. A giddy sense of lightness and warmth. So the darkness was a fucking liar, after all. It couldn’t really kill him. All it could do was hurt.

“I know I’m a lost cause, Fragile. I don’t expect you to forgive me or even understand, but I needed to say it. Thank you for letting me.”

“You are not a lost cause,” she said slowly. “I know it wasn’t your fault. I mean, most of it was, but you being broken wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t…be with you, the way you needed.”

She paused, seeming to waver. “I suppose, since we are making confessions, I should tell you. That wasn’t really the reason I refused you.”

“What was it?”

“I didn’t trust you. I was furious and heartbroken when you betrayed me, but I was more angry with myself. Part of me had always known what you were.”

“Fuck,” he winced. “I thought I was passin’ for human, too.”

“You did, most of the time. But most of a mask isn’t enough. People who get close enough will always see the cracks, eventually.”

“I took it off for you, once. You hated the real me a lot more than the mask, cracks or no.”

“I never hated you, Higgs. I was afraid of you. Just afraid.”

“I don’t—I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he faltered, unable to conceal a sudden tremor in his voice.

She lifted her head and looked up into his eyes. “I’m not. Not anymore.”

Overcome by a flood of emotions he could not stop to investigate, he drew her in again and held her tightly, pressing kisses to her face, pale and wet with tears. He wasn’t sure if they were his or hers, or both. It didn’t matter. They were sharing something that felt like pain, but it wasn’t a bad, poisonous pain. This was something good. Something healing.

He breathed deeply and let it all wash over him, seeping into the raw places left hollow by that lying fucking darkness, drawing out the venom. Maybe this was that love people were always talking about. Not like the way he loved Sam, but another kind. One he didn’t have a name for yet.

“Fragile,” he said softly, after a long moment. “You know…we don’t have to fuck to have a baby.”

“Higgs,” she replied calmly. “Unless you are tired of possessing testicles, this is not something you want to joke about with me.”

“I wasn’t joking. I’m deadly serious. There’s nobody in the world who—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted. “I just—I don’t want to think about that right now. I am not ready and neither are you.”

“Well, I didn’t mean right this second. Take as long as you want to think it over. I’ve got nothin’ but time.”

“Good. Because it is going to take me some time to get used to this.”

“To what?”

“To us being…friends.”

“Are we?”

“I think we can be. If you can control your ego and be less of an insufferable jackass.”

“No promises, sweetheart. Insufferable jackass is pretty much my whole thing. You love that about me, though, admit it.”

“Ugh. Is it too late to change my mind and un-forgive you?”

“Yep. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. Higgs and Fragile. Best friends forever. We should get those little heart necklaces.”

“I already regret this.”

“Nah, you don’t,” he laughed. Then he cupped her chin in his hand and looked keenly into her face. He was still smiling, but something like that chilling hardness, that had terrified her all those years ago, sparked behind his bright-blue eyes. “You listen to me, though, because I am only going to say this once. You ever try to hurt yourself like that again, you _will_ regret it. I promise.”

Fragile stared up at him open-mouthed, unable to reply. At that moment, however, there was a quiet knock at the door, and Higgs released her and stepped back.

“Come on in, Johnny,” he called out affably.

“Sorry, boss,” Flaherty said, as the door opened and he stepped timidly inside. “I didn’t take my gear and it’s pouring rain out there.”

“That’s alright, I’m glad you’re here. I got a question for you.”

“What’s that, boss?”

“When we popped in, I noticed you closed that holo-screen in a hurry.” Higgs tilted his head to one side. “What were you watchin’?”

Flaherty swallowed hard. “Porn…ography?”

“Ah, I see,” Higgs said, strolling over to the control panel. “Anything good?”

“Oh no—you don’t want to do that, boss,” Flaherty stammered. “It’s…weird. Really weird.”

“The Aristocats,” Higgs read aloud. “Must be one of those artsy German ones.”

Flaherty’s face went red as a beet and he looked down at his boots.

Fragile rolled her eyes. “Don’t torment the kid, Higgs. He can watch cartoon kitties if he wants. I think it’s sweet.”

“I’m not a kid, I’m twenty-two!” Flaherty interjected indignantly. “And I’m not sweet. I’m a highly-trained soldier with lots of combat experience. Tell her, boss.”

“That’s true, Fragile. Johnny here is a human weapon.”

“Thank you, boss.”

“Who also happens to be about as sweet and wholesome as apple pie.”

“Aw, come on, boss,” Flaherty said dejectedly. “You can’t say stuff like that about me in front of a girl. No disrespect, ma’am.”

Fragile couldn’t help smiling at this. “It’s alright, Johnny. I am aware that I am a girl. But we are not done talking, Higgs. You were supposed to tell me about Sam’s family.”

“Right,” he said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “I’ve been thinkin' about that since we had those visions when we jumped. I think I can show you.”

“What do you mean you have been thinking about it since then? That was an hour ago. And you have been talking constantly.”

“One the advantages of bein’ a genius,” Higgs grinned. “I can use my mind and mouth at the same time.”

“I have yet to see evidence of that,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “But there is no reason to waste energy trying to induce another vision. Telling me will do just as well.”

“Incorrect,” Higgs countered. “I am not well-versed in what people call…complex emotions. As such, I have a difficult time expressing them verbally. This situation is complex as fuck. If I show you, there’s a lot less chance I’ll create misunderstanding by attempting to explain it as a narrative.”

“Alright, fine,” Fragile said impatiently. “Just don’t fuck up and show me more of the future. What do we do?”

“Come over here. It’ll be just like a jump, only I’ll be taking us to a point in the past instead of a place.”

“Is that…safe?” Fragile said, hesitating.

“It ain’t time-travel like in the movies. The past is just an echo of energy written on molecules, like a phonograph recording. We won’t be able to change anything and no one will be able to see us. You ready?”

She nodded. “I’m ready.”

“Stand back, Johnny,” Higgs said, as they put their hands on each other’s shoulders. “I’ve never done this before, so it may be a little…bumpy.”

Flaherty watched curiously as they touched their foreheads together and closed their eyes, as they had done before. As before, nothing happened for a long moment. Then he blinked and the three of them were standing in an entirely different place. No flames, no roar, no shower of black sparks—nothing to indicate anything had changed, except that everything had.


	19. Not Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **********************************************************************  
*********TRIGGER WARNING: FRANK DEPICTION OF SUICIDE **********  
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The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free and confidential support for people in distress, 24/7. If you or a loved one is having suicidal thoughts, please call 1-800-273-8255.

Rain drizzled from the grey sky of a cold, New England afternoon, and pattered on the windows of a cozy townhouse living room. Comfortable was perhaps a better descriptive than cozy, as the latter implies a sense of cheerful domesticity that this place, with all its comforts, somehow failed to attain.

Its gently lulling atmosphere had, in fact, been carefully crafted and curated in every detail, but fell short of that genuine homeliness which comes with the natural accumulation of a family’s various possessions over the years. Comfortable it was, however, and it lacked nothing tangible that an occupant could reasonably desire.

Opposite the large, multi-paned living room windows, a holographic fireplace crackled invitingly and threw its warm glow over everything, preventing the gloomy weather outside from casting a pall on the tranquility of the space.

Before the fireplace sat a pair of overstuffed mauve sofas, scattered with plush throw pillows in muted earth tones, which complimented the floral patterned rug on the floor. In the center of this rug, there was a dark-wood coffee table, with a mauve silk runner and holographic floral centerpiece. Its matching side-tables sat at the end of each sofa, and were gently illuminated by Tiffany lamps.

On the further wall, built-in bookshelves were lined with decorative volumes of the classics, bound in dark green and embossed with gold lettering, providing auxiliary sound-dampening, in addition to aesthetic fullness. Even the framed artwork that hung upon the beige walls depicted serene, rural landscapes, and each scene included a barn or farmhouse in the distance, intended to keep the observer in mind of the restful comforts of the domestic home.

From the hallway directly adjoining this room, muffled by a closed door, there came a soft sound, like a woman weeping. Sobbing, in fact, and retching. After a minute or two, the disturbance ceased. A toilet flushed. Water ran in a sink. Then the door opened and a pretty young woman with long, sandy blonde hair stepped out, looking pale and rather unsteady on her feet.

She padded into the living room and reclined among the cushions and pillows, laying one hand on her abdomen, and holding a damp wash cloth to her clammy forehead with the other. She had been resting in this attitude for several minutes, when a cheerful, electronic chirp sounded from the holoscreen above the fireplace, disturbing her repose.

She sat up with a start, stuffing the damp cloth under a pillow, and quickly smoothed her hair before answering the call. She put on a bright smile as the caller’s image appeared on the screen. An older woman in a white suit and lilac scarf, with shoulder-length hair that had once been golden-blonde, though it was now streaked with silver, and sea-blue eyes, behind a pair of tasteful, wire-framed spectacles.

“President Strand,” the young woman said cheerfully. “How kind of you to call.”

“I told you, just Bridget,” the older woman chided, smiling warmly in return. “You’re family now, Lucy. And I fully expect to be called nothing but grandma Bridget after my grandbaby is born.”

“Right, Bridget, sorry,” Lucy said, her smile turning sheepish. “I’m still getting used to it, so I’ll apologize in advance for a few more slip-ups. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Sam asked me to check in on you while he’s away, to make sure you’re comfortable and have everything you need,” Bridget said, then she gave a gleeful little laugh. “As if he could have stopped me. Everyone can tell I’m so excited to be a grandmother, it’s even gotten to be a topic of conversation around here. One of my aides told me the gossip columns are already calling me President Grandma.”

“Brave columnists,” Lucy said, laughing too. “Well, President Grandma, you’ll be pleased to hear the baby and I are doing very well and have absolutely everything we need.”

“I’m so glad. How’s the house? Sam didn’t leave all the unpacking for you, did he?”

“Oh, no, we were all settled before he left. It was easy, since it was already furnished, and we really didn’t have much to do. I just wanted to say, Pres—Bridget, this house is…it’s amazing. I never dreamed of living in a place like this. I really can’t thank you enough for doing this for us.”

“Nonsense, I was happy to give it to you and I won’t hear another word about it. You know, when I was called to Washington, I kept telling myself I intended to sell it, but I just couldn't do it. Then Sam came along and I held onto it hoping it would be his one day, when he had a family of his own. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to think the place would sit there gathering dust forever. Then you appeared like a miracle and changed all our lives.”

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you, for making me feel so welcome in your family,” Lucy said. “You hired me personally to care for Sam’s mental health, so you can imagine how terrified I was to tell you we’d fallen in love and wanted to be married.”

“Sam was certainly brave enough for the both of you,” Bridget laughed. “He walked into my office, said ‘Mom, I’m marrying Lucy,’ and walked right out again. I had to chase him down in the hall and make him come back to talk about the date and wedding arrangements. But listen, as far as I’m concerned, you did the best thing anyone ever could have for Sam. His condition is cured, he’s happy, and he’s going to be father. You’ve brought so much joy to this family, Lucy.”

“Thank you, pres—Bridget,” Lucy said, visibly tearing up. “That means so much to me. Sorry, it’s—I have all these hormones. You understand.”

“Of course, don’t worry about it. But sweetie, you’re looking a little pale. You’re not still having that morning sickness, are you?”

“Actually…I am, a little bit. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to seem to be complaining. But It’s nothing to worry about. They say it’s still normal to be sick this early on.”

Bridget’s brow furrowed with concern “Hm. I suppose so, but it really would ease my mind if you’d let me send that nurse to you. She’s one of the best obstetric nurses in the UCA, and you can never be too careful.”

“Oh, no…I couldn’t let you do that for me,” Lucy said uneasily.

“Just for when Sam is away. I’m sure he’d like to know you’re not all alone in that big house,” Bridget said. Seeing that Lucy still hesitated, she put on her most motherly smile. “But you’ll see her for a consultation, at least. Come on, I insist. You can’t say no to President Grandma.”

“Well, I suppose…yes,” Lucy said, smiling again. “I mean, yes, of course. Thank you, Bridget. For everything.”

“Don’t mention it, dear. I keep telling you, you’re family. I’ll have her call you and set up an in-home visit this week. I’ve got to run, but you be sure to get lots of rest and take good care of yourself. Don’t forget, you’re not just carrying your child and Sam's, but the future of the UCA, too.”

“I won’t forget. Goodbye, Bridget. Thank you again.”

After the call disconnected, Lucy rose from the sofa and crossed the room to a wired telephone, sitting on the sideboard between the living room and dining room. As she did so, the light shifted outside and the windows went dark, as if night had suddenly fallen. Lucy had changed as well. Her face had grown paler, and her cheeks thinner and more hollow, in direct disproportion to the distended belly that now swelled beneath her white, silk bathrobe, indicating a much later time in the pregnancy.

“…told me she wouldn’t send you out on the road like this anymore, till after the baby is born,” she was saying to the person on the other end of the line. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone to the White House. I knew this would happen.”

She paused, listening.

“Oh, you promise? You also promised that if we went, you’d be coming home with me. Then you promised you wouldn’t be gone more than a week. Then you promised no more than a month. Just tell me, are you planning on being here before she graduates high school? Because if not, I’d like to know.”

Another pause.

“Yes, I did. Why? Because I don’t like having a spy in my house, Sam! I don’t need a fucking nanny supervising me and reporting every piss I take to Bridget or Amelie or whatever we’re calling them now. Nothing. Forget it.”

She closed her eyes and passed a hand over her brow.

“I’m supposed to be resting and avoiding stress, so I’m going to try and get some sleep. Just please, come home as soon as you can. I know. I love you, too.”

As she hung up the telephone, the light and Lucy changed again. Her skin was now wax-white, and deep shadows lay beneath her eyes. There was an empty, orange prescription bottle on the table beside her, and she was typing something on a tablet with shaky, agitated hands.

When she had apparently finished what she’d been typing, she switched off the tablet, then rose and made her slow, unsteady way back into the living room. Supporting the belly that now seemed grossly out of proportion on her otherwise thin frame, she lowered herself stiffly to sit on the sofa. From the pocket of her robe, she drew out a clear, plastic tube, containing ten syringes. Her hands shook as she attempted to unscrew the lid, causing her to fumble with it and curse under her breath. On the second attempt, she got the thing open and drew out one of the syringes.

“Lucy,” a soft, female voice said.

She gave a start and looked up, then her expression changed. “Oh, it’s you. I’d say don’t try to stop me, but…you can’t.”

The source of the voice was a tall, thin girl with bright, golden-blonde hair and large, sea-blue eyes. Her crimson dress blazed brilliant in the warm light of the fire and her hair shimmered as she stepped closer.

“I’m not here to stop you,” she said gently.

“Then what do you want?” Lucy demanded.

“I thought you might not want to be alone.”

“I’d rather be alone than with you.”

The girl looked genuinely wounded. “How can you say that, Lucy? You know how much we love you. How much you mean to us.”

“You mean how much the baby means to you. I was just a sacrifice. You told me that, remember?”

“No. We only told you there would be a choice. You are choosing to be a sacrifice, Lucy. You are walking into this, eyes open. Giving your life to give him a chance. It’s beautiful.”

Lucy made no reply, but tears began to roll down her white cheeks. She jabbed the syringe into her arm and missed the vein, then drew it out again, leaving a purple bruise and a bead of crimson on her white skin.

“God damn it,” she sniffled. “I’m shaking so hard. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this.”

“Do you want to call the nurse?” the girl asked, in that same sweet, tranquil tone.

She shook her head. “No. I have to do it this way. If the nurse helps, she’ll be a murderer. I won’t put that on her conscience.”

“You’re a good person, Lucy, and you’re so strong. That’s why Sam loves you. I know you can do this. I believe in you.”

Taking some deep breaths to steady herself, Lucy made another attempt and this time, she hit the vein. The girl in red watched calmly as she pushed down the plunger, slowly injecting all of the clear liquid into her bloodstream. After a moment, she stopped shaking and blinked her eyes heavily.

“You should go, I…I want to be alone now,” she said, in a low, dreamy voice. “Wait. Just…promise me you’ll explain everything to Sam…after I’m gone. He probably won’t understand, but…he’ll know I was…doing the best I could for him.”

The girl dipped her head in acquiescence. “Of course.”

“And tell him…tell him I’ll always love him.”

“I will. Goodbye, Lucy,” she said, then vanished without a sound, as if she had never been there.

Slowly and methodically, Lucy repeated her ritual with the remaining syringes, until there were only three left. She took one of these up and uncapped it, but it fell from her hand and rolled onto the floor. With her final act of conscious will, she whispered the word “Sam.” Then her eyes drifted closed and she saw no more.

Three minutes and ten seconds after Lucy Strand drew her last breath, her peaceful home was alive with a blur of rapid, efficient activity. A cavalcade of unmarked, black vehicles pulled up outside and armed, black-uniformed men swarmed out of them. They kicked open the front door, cleared every room on the premises within thirty seconds, and took up watch positions all over the house.

At a signal, white-clad medical personnel emerged from another vehicle and hurried into the house, rolling a gurney along with them. Two of them hoisted a bodybag off the gurney, while two more lifted Lucy’s lifeless body from the sofa. She was carried over to replace the bag on the empty gurney, strapped securely in, and rolled out to one of the waiting vehicles, which sped off, sirens blaring.

As this was going on, the medical personnel inside were removing the body bag from the corpse of what had apparently been a young woman. It had been dressed in a white silk robe and was of the same height, build, and hair color as Lucy, but its skin was streaked with black and its face was unrecognizable as anything human.

The body had already begun to twitch and jerk spasmodically, as corpses do in such an advanced state of necrotic progression, signaling that necrosis was imminent. Leaving the convulsing, rapidly blackening body on the sofa, the remaining medical personnel carried away the empty bodybag, and their vehicle swiftly departed.

In the meantime, the black-clad men had collected the syringes, prescription bottle, and the tablet from the dining room table. They performed a rapid final sweep, confirmed the all-clear over their earpieces, then retreated from the house, pulling the door shut behind them, but not bothering to secure the shattered locking mechanism.

“Estimated target time to objective,” one asked his earpiece, as they hurried back to their vehicles. “Jesus Christ. You guys are cutting it way too fucking close with this shit.”

He waved a signal to the drivers, then climbed into the passenger seat, and the caravan departed, vanishing down the dark, sleepy neighborhood street.

Twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds after the vehicles departed, there was a low boom and a brilliant burst of light inside the townhouse from which Lucy had been taken, that shook the windows and briefly illuminated the street outside, like a flash of lightning. This was lost, however, in the actual thunder and lightning of a storm that had kicked up since the black caravan had carried Lucy away.

Two hours and ten minutes later, a motorcycle roared up the quiet, residential street and pulled into the driveway adjoining Lucy’s townhouse. The rider swung his leg over the saddle to dismount, took a step toward the house, then froze in place. There was a breathless pause, then he tore the helmet from his head and threw it on the ground as he dashed madly for the front door, chiral tears already streaming down his cheeks.

The storm had since cleared, and the very first indigo blue of pre-dawn was showing in the eastern sky. Newspaper delivery boys would have been out at this hour, but for the fact that no one had printed nor delivered a physical newspaper in decades. The earliest risers, perhaps out for a morning jog, or those returning home from night-shift jobs would have been the only ones aware of their destruction. And only briefly aware, if at all.

The glacial reaction times and anemic destructive power of traditional explosives, which operate by way of fusion, fission, or simple ignition of fuel—the proverbial fire and powder, which as they kiss consume—do not compare to the hideous beauty in the violent collision of matter and antimatter. And to these violent delights, the according violent ends.

This star crossed union ignites the atmosphere in an instant, unhindered by the slow and ponderous laws of physical atomic structure, obliterating everything in its sphere. Destroying not with fire nor water, but with negation. The cataclysmic unmaking of what is, as it flows into the void of what is not.

An atom bomb is nothing to that single, passionate embrace, which burns bright, if briefly, leaving nothing in its wake but its name, graven deep into the bones of the earth, lest its tale of woe go untold.

The whiteout of annihilation was followed by the blackout of nothingness, then faded to a greyish middle-ground of confused acclimation, as eyes gradually readjusted to the physical world. Six eyes, to be exact. Or rather, three pairs, all in their appropriate sockets.

Higgs stood stoic and silent, watching the other two. Fragile swayed and took hold of his arm for support, staring dazedly into the middle distance. Flaherty sat down hard on the floor, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

After a moment, Fragile shook herself and went over to him. Crouching at his side, she put an arm around his broad shoulders and murmured soothing words, as she stroked his hair and rocked him like a child. Higgs retrieved a can of beer from the refrigerated storage built in behind a wall panel. He popped the tab as he brought it over and handed it to Flaherty.

“Drink it slow,” he said. “It’ll help calm your nerves down some.”

Flaherty wiped his red eyes with the back of his hand and sipped it obediently, sniffling between swallows.

“They used her,” Fragile said, her soft voice filled with quiet menace. “They lied to her. They used her to make a baby with Sam. Then they took his wife and baby away from him and covered it up with a mass-murder. A voidout in the middle of a residential neighborhood.”

“There’s only one ‘they’ responsible here, and you know that as well as I do,” Higgs replied, in his usual languid, almost flippant manner. “Even I had limits, but it turns out there was nothin’ too cruel for her. Even that.”

“I thought I had enough reasons to hate that fucking arachnid bitch,” Fragile spat. “So, Sam is with them, then. On their Beach. That is why you think he won’t come back.”

“If Lou dies and crosses over, I don’t think he will, no.”

“But we can go to Capital Knot and find out how she is right now,” Fragile urged, rising to her feet. “Deadman has her in his lab.”

“All we’d find out right now is that she’s dead as far as they are concerned,” Higgs countered. “A BB in a pod can’t go necro, though, so I assume Deadman will hold onto her for Sam.”

Fragile nodded. “For as long as it takes. Partly because he has a bit of a soft spot for her himself, though he would claim it was only loyalty to Sam.”

“So you see,” Higgs said, spreading his arms resignedly. “All I can do is wait.”

“That isn’t all we can do, boss,” Flaherty sniffled. “We can teach those Bridges fucks a lesson about murdering innocent ladies and and using their little babies as BT radar and network routers.”

Higgs squinted at him. “Johnny, not to call attention to a sticky moral issue, but we have killed a lot of innocent ladies and little babies ourselves. Those bombs weren’t full of glitter and confetti.”

“We were the bad guys, boss,” Flaherty said resolutely. “We didn’t go around acting like we were god’s gift to humanity, and saying we were gonna show everybody the way the truth and the light, while we were hiding skeletons like that in the closet. We said who we were and we did what we said we’d do. We were terrorists, yeah. But we were honest.”

“I can’t believe I am saying this, but he has a point, Higgs,” Fragile put in. “These are crimes against humanity, at the very least. If the UCA utopia is going to be built on Bridges monstrosities, I don’t want any part of it.”

Higgs tilted his head inquisitively to one side. “But you knew about the stillmothers and how the BBs worked already.”

“I knew what they were, but I thought they only used women who had already become brain dead due to other causes. I justified that to myself as a necessary evil, for the sake of saving so many other lives. But I never would have believed they were creating the stillmothers themselves.”

“They still may not be. I’m willing to bet Sam’s baby was a special case for ol’ Bridget.”

“It’s still fucked up what that red-dress lady did, boss. She should have to pay for tricking Lucy and stealing her from Sam.”

“There’s nothin’ any of us can do to her now, but trust me, Johnny, she will be settling that debt for the remainder of eternity.”

“So, do we wait for Sam?” Fragile asked. “Or do we confront Die-Hardman ourselves.”

“I’m on the naughty list, and I doubt he’ll feel inclined to listen to anything I have to say if Sam isn’t there makin' righteously-indignant Sam face at him. I say we wait. Unless you think you can convince the president to be reasonable.”

Fragile bit her lip, hesitating, then shook her head. “I guess we wait for Sam.”

“Yeah, wait for Sam. He’s cool, no one likes when he’s not around.”

Fragile and Flaherty looked up with a jolt, and Higgs had already spun around to face the door. For a moment, all three stared, dumbfounded, uncertain what to disbelieve first. There was Sam, in the absolute flesh. Standing right there in the safehouse doorway, like he’d only been gone a few minutes. In his arms, he held a little bundle that appeared—if they could make their minds comprehend it—to be an infant.

Higgs found his voice first, but it came out faint and tremulous. “Since when do you…have glasses?”

“I dunno, like, forever?” Sam said, absently rocking the baby-shaped bundle in his arms. “I’m sure you’ve seen me wear these before.”

Higgs shook his head slowly. “No. I have not.”

“Hey, who’s he?” Sam asked, jerking his chin to indicate Flaherty.

“Sam, this is Johnny,” Higgs said, still not taking his eyes off Sam’s face. “Johnny, Fragile, get out.”


	20. I'll Keep Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT.
> 
> NO JOKE, IT'S PORN.
> 
> LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK.
> 
> YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, PAL.
> 
> GODSPEED. 
> 
> ________________________________________

“Sam, I am so glad to see that you and Lou are well,” Fragile said, taking Flaherty by the arm and dragging him to his feet. “Johnny and I were just going to get some dinner. You like sushi, Johnny?”

Flaherty looked around at the other three wide-eyed, rather like a deer caught in the headlights. “I—uh…I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Excellent, an opportunity to expand your palate,” Fragile smiled. “Sam, Higgs, we will see you later.”

“Later, Fragile,” Sam said imperturbably. “Nice to meet you, Johnny.”

“Nice to meet you, too, sir.” Flaherty cast a pleading glance at Higgs, but finding no assistance there, gave a resigned sigh. “So, sushi like…raw fish?”

By way of response, Fragile hooked an arm around his waist and they were gone, with a whirling rush of black particles.

“Hold Lou for a minute,” Sam said, extending the infant-shaped bundle to Higgs.

Had he given him half a second to think about it, Higgs would have refused, but Sam did not give him any such chance. Thus, he found himself accepting the small, sleeping human into his arms, looking and feeling as if he’d just been handed a Fabergé egg filled with nitroglycerine.

“Relax, Higgs,” Sam laughed. “You’re not gonna break her.”

“How do you know that?” Higgs hissed, replying in a whisper for some reason, though what that reason could be, he was uncertain. “I never held a baby in my life, anything could go wrong.”

“Well, you used to build nuclear bombs, so just think of her like that. She’s not gonna explode if you jostle her a little, but try not to drop her.”

As he imparted this sage bit of fatherly wisdom, Sam produced some kind of oblong tank thing from his pack, which he began hooking up to Lou’s connection port. It looked a bit like a BB pod had been crossed with one of the domed beds in which Higgs had found the stillmothers.

Higgs half-listened to Sam explaining something about it being Målingen’s invention, designed to monitor and provide life-support to premature infants, as he gazed down at the one in his arms. It occurred to him then that, despite being in something like her seventh year on the planet, she was as new to this world as if she’d been born the moment Sam had opened the pod.

This made his stomach flip in a bad way, so he abandoned that line of thought and tried to concentrate on what Sam was saying. There was another difficulty, here. Rather than the overwhelming relief at seeing him again that he had expected, he found himself uneasy and tense, and oddly hesitant to speak or intrude into Sam’s personal space.

The infant would have been barrier enough against any very strong demonstration of affection at the moment, but it wasn’t that. It was a sudden, disorienting feeling of estrangement from Sam, for which he could not account.

Here he was, in Sam’s physical presence, and yet he’d never felt so disconnected. To the contrary, since the moment he’d set eyes on him, he’d been almost unable to think of Sam as an entity separate from himself.

Sam Bridges as a concept had been something to which he was entitled. A player upon the stage set for his own ascendance. A rival and an equal, whose actions would reflect and counterbalance his, and whose role was entirely dependent upon his own.

But now…now he was this other being, with a vast and complex internal life. Thoughts to which Higgs was not privy. A past that had not included him in its designs for the future. All at once, Higgs felt keenly his own role as an antagonist. His advent had been a disruption in the already progressing timeline of Sam’s life, rather than the spark which had kindled him to action.

The narcissism inherent in such a perspective would have amused him had it occurred to him, but it did not. For all the time it spends gazing at its own reflection, a true descendent of Narcissus can be staggeringly deficient in self-awareness.

Now that his mirror-twin had become a whole person in his mind, he found himself at a loss for how to interact with him. So, he stood there awkwardly holding Sam’s baby, giving monosyllabic replies when it seemed appropriate, feeling miserably alone and bereft all the while.

“All done,” Sam said, indicating to the pod. “You wanna put her to bed?”

Higgs shook his head mutely and held her out to him. Sam took her up and carried her over to nestle her securely in the pod, reaching in and stroking her little cheek with a finger before he shut the cover. The pod went dark and he breathed a long sigh, then turned to Higgs.

“Hey, did you die while I was gone? I thought I felt you repatriate.”

“I did,” Higgs answered stiffly. “Little incident on the mountain.”

“You freeze to death? I’ve done that like, five times.”

“Something like that,” Higgs said, then he paused. “Why didn’t I feel you come back?”

“I didn’t really repatriate. I was just on the Beach.”

As he said this, Sam stepped forward and reached for him. Higgs flinched reflexively as if expecting a blow. As always, no blows came, but Sam saw it—the flash of fear in his eyes—and it wounded him.

“I’m not…gonna hurt you,” he sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. “I know I hurt you before, but I was fighting you for my life. There’s a huge difference.”

Higgs stood silent, regarding him warily from beneath the lashes of his black-lined eyes. He knew what those hands felt like when raised in anger. Knew it painfully and with brutal clarity. Sam’s fists rattling his teeth and bones. His uncle’s fists pounding his flesh. The only two men who had ever beaten him.

Sam turned away and passed a hand over his brow. When he turned back, the lenses of his black-framed eyeglasses were misted. He took them off and set them on the table, and Higgs saw that his eyes were wet and rimmed with pink.

“Higgs, please don’t be afraid of me,” he said wearily. “Please don’t put your armor on right now. I need you so much.”

This statement struck Higgs as forcefully as any blow could have, jolting him back out of that dark place. His defensive posture relaxed somewhat. “You…need me?”

“Yes, I do!” Sam said, gesturing emphatically. “Of course I do. I feel like I have this big, gaping chest wound and I’ve been bleeding out since we’ve been apart. I hated being away from you, but I had to do what I did. I hope you understand that.”

“I do. I understand. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not yet. I just need to be close to you right now.”

“Well,” Higgs said, letting a smile curl the corners of his lips. “Here I am.”

Sam waited for no further invitation. In a second, his powerful arms were around Higgs, pushing him backward, unbalancing him and taking control of his body. Higgs fought down a brief impulse to resist and let himself be lowered onto his back on the bed.

His breath hitched as Sam’s mouth covered his, parted his lips and found his tongue, touching and caressing it with his own. That wall of separation melted away like snow in a furnace, giving way to a sort of dizzy ecstasy, as Sam held him pinned beneath his warm, solid body, kissing him like the world was burning down.

“I want you,” Sam rasped, his voice thick and hoarse with desire. “I want to be inside you.”

Higgs’ mind reeled with the sensation of Sam’s lips moving against his, his hot breath on his face, his rough beard brushing his chin, as he finally spoke those longed-for and half-dreaded words. They had lain in this bed together many times, touched and kissed each other, but it had never been like this. That had been play. The mock hunting among juvenile predators with their den mates. Now, he felt the keen teeth of real intent, bared to draw blood. Anxiety flooded back into his bloodstream and twined cold knots in his stomach. Against his will, the armor snapped closed.

Sam felt his hesitation and pushed himself up, laying a hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry. This is too much, isn’t it.”

Higgs laughed, low in his throat, his blue eyes sparking in challenge. “You don’t have anything I can’t handle, Sammy.”

“Are you sure?” Sam frowned. “I don’t want to push you.”

Higgs pulled him back down and pressed his lips to his ear, letting his voice drop into the deep, resonant growl, wherein he knew its power lay.

“Saaaaammmmm,” he taunted. “Fuck me, Sam. I want you. Put that big, hard dick in me.”

“That’s not—fucking fair,” Sam sputtered. “You can’t just say shit like that.”

“You know how to shut me up,” Higgs purred, grabbing his ass with both hands and grinding against him. “Or do you want me to beg?”

Sam pulled his hands away and pinned them above his head, looking into his eyes. “I don’t want you to beg. I want to undress you. I want us to be naked together.”

The mask flickered. “Why?”

“We’re talking about having sex, Higgs. You know we’ve been living together for almost a year and I’ve never even seen you without a shirt on, right?”

“There’s nothin’ under my shirt that’s involved in fucking.”

“That’s not the point. I want to touch you.”

“You touch me all the time.”

“Over your clothes. You wear long sleeves and pants to bed. You make me leave before you shower. I want to see your body and feel your skin.”

Higgs looked away, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching, then he pushed Sam off him and sat up, resting his elbows on his knees and chafing his hands together anxiously.

“I don’t like what’s under my clothes,” he said after a moment. “That’s why I hide it.”

“Look at me,” Sam said, getting up to stand in front of him. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it away, touching the cross-shaped scar on his abdomen. “Look at my body. There’s not an inch of it that’s not fucked up. But I don’t want to hide it from you. I want you to see all of me.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you love me. The whole ugly, scarred mess that I am.”

“You’re not ugly.”

“Neither are you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Do you think I’d love you any less if you were?”

“No,” Higgs said, casting his eyes down at the floor again. “But there are some stories written on my skin you might not be ready to read.”

Sam knelt between his knees, cupping his chin in his hand so he had to meet his gaze. “You and I are broken, Higgs. We’ve been hurt badly. But our scars are part of who we are. I want to know you. All of you.”

Higgs gazed back at him in sullen silence, but the mask had shattered. The hard gleam had left his eyes, replaced by the hollow, desolate look of an animal too wounded to fight, but too accustomed to fighting to surrender.

Watching his face closely, Sam worked his hand up under the hem of his black thermal shirt, letting it rest lightly on his abdomen. Higgs tensed up, his breath coming short and ragged, but he didn’t resist. Gradually, his rapid respiration slowed. Willing his taut muscles to relax, he leaned back on his elbows, passively inviting further exploration.

His eyes fluttered shut as Sam’s strong, calloused hands slid up his sides beneath his shirt, then back down over the ridges of his abdominal muscles, tracing a thumb along the line of thick, curly hair below his navel. When they moved up again, they brought the hem of the shirt with them, raising it just enough for him to press his lips to the skin above the trousers waistband.

Higgs swallowed another nauseating swell of panic. Sam’s hands and mouth and hot breath moved further up, exposing more of his skin. More of his scars. Gouges and slashes from a galaxy of blades. A constellation of starbursts, ground in by the burning embers of cigarettes. A comet’s tail of parallel lines, carved by the jagged edges of a broken bottle. The twisted nebula left by a frying pan full of hot oil.

He knew each one as Sam’s lips traced over them, lingering on them, pressing tender kisses to his ugliest wounds. His throat began to ache and tears burned in his eyes. He only realized Sam was pulling off his shirt when it was already halfway over his head. With a deep sigh, more of relief than anything else, he lifted his arms and let it go.

His eyes opened again as Sam drew away and got up. He watched him peel off his trekking pants and underwear, freeing his cock, which wobbled and stood rigidly out from his body. Disjointed observations flickered through his mind, rapid-fire. Hard. Thick. Veins. Circumcision scar. Round, swollen head. He wondered vaguely what it tasted like, then a noise distracted him.

Sam was opening a panel in the wall and taking out a bunch of little silver packets, which he tossed on the bed. Right. Lubricant. Higgs knew theoretically and observationally how men had sex with men, but the prospect of something that size actually being put inside his body was more than a little daunting, even with lubrication.

Sam leaned over him again. Higgs lifted his ass, allowing him to tug down his own trousers and underwear. Sam pulled them all the way off and dropped them on the floor, and that was that. They were naked. Fully exposed to each other. The most vulnerable Higgs had ever allowed himself to be in the presence of another human being. But for some reason, he wasn’t afraid. Why wasn’t he afraid?

All his internal deliberations were blown away and scattered like dandelion seeds, as Sam knelt on the bed and lowered his naked body onto him, pressing their bare skin together for the first time. Then there was nothing but this. Tasting Sam’s mouth, feeling his skin, breathing his scent, being held beneath the solid weight of his body.

Sam tore open one of the little packets with his teeth and squeezed the clear, viscous contents into his palm, then wrapped his hand around them both. Higgs looked down between them, watching the ruddy heads moving in and out of Sam’s fist as he began to stroke them.

“I love you,” Sam murmured, between breathless kisses. “I love you so much.”

Higgs wasn’t sure if he’d replied out loud. He was lost in the slick slide of their cocks, fucking into Sam’s firm grip together. He gave a growl of protest when Sam let go, which made Sam laugh. Then rough hands turned him gently over onto his stomach. Pulled him up by his hips, pushed his legs apart. His face flushed with heat as Sam spread his ass with his thumbs, exposing him obscenely. There was a tense pause in which he heard the blood rushing in his ears.

“Sam—fuck!” he gasped, as Sam’s hot, wet tongue lapped his asshole. “Jesus fucking…fuck!”

Spreading him wider, Sam laved his tongue around in slow circles, prodding and teasing the sensitive opening. Suddenly, he slid the tip just inside, which elicited a stream of profanity from his beloved that would have put the most hardboiled veteran sailor to the blush.

Higgs reached down to stroke himself, but Sam grabbed his wrists and held them pinned at the small of his back with one hand, then went on tongue-fucking him out of his senses, till his dick was throbbing, aching, leaking so hard it looked like he’d pissed himself.

He whined as Sam’s tongue withdrew, leaving him frustratingly empty, then hissed as ice-cold lube drizzled over his asshole. Gasped as the first finger was pushed inside. Nearly gagged as the second was added, working in and out, slicking and stretching him for Sam’s dick.

He’d been anxious about it hurting, but now he was writhing with tormenting need, arching his back, sputtering incoherent pleas for more. The fingers withdrew and Sam slotted his heavy shaft into the cleft of his ass, sliding it up and down in the slick of spit and lube.

“I’m gonna fuck you now,” he said. “You ready?”

Higgs tried to nod while supporting half his weight on his forehead. “I’m ready. Fuck me.”

Sam released his hands and took hold of his hips. Higgs gripped the mattress with white knuckles. His mouth fell open. A choking sound was squeezed from his throat as the big, blunt head pressed in through the tight ring of muscle. Sam kept going, pushing his impossibly thick, rigid shaft deeper and deeper, stretching him open till he was sure he’d split in half. Tears blurred his vision and rolled down his face. Just when he thought he could take no more, he felt Sam’s pubic bone resting flush against his ass.

“You feel…so fucking good,” Sam said, his words coming out husky and slurred. “I need a minute.”

Higgs couldn’t answer. All his senses were submerged in the exquisite ache and burn, the obliteration of the line between pleasure and pain, the excruciating knot of tension winding up between his balls and the base of his spine. He was so desperately close to relief, he just needed a little more friction, pressure…anything.

“Please,” he half moaned. “Sam, please.”

Sam pulled out slowly and slid back into his taut, squeezing heat, striking something inside him that unleashed a hoarse cry from his mouth. Higgs bit down on the mattress as he thrust into him again and again, producing another muffled cry each time, then Sam stopped abruptly, digging his fingers into his hips with bruising force.

“Wait,” he panted. “I can’t—I’m gonna come so fast.”

“Fuckin’ give it me!” Higgs snarled, throwing a hand back to take hold of his thigh. “Don’t stop! Fuck me!”

Sam took a shaky breath to center himself and resumed, fucking him in steady, even strokes. Beads of sweat rolled off his chin and splashed onto Higgs’ back. Higgs’ thighs began to shake as Sam rocked into him, thrumming over his prostate, twisting to the knot tighter and tighter.

Suddenly it snapped. All that aching pressure boiled over at once and exploded. His body went rigid and he gave a strangled cry as he came so hard his vision whited out, his insides constricting on Sam’s solid shaft, and his cock spitting pearly streaks all over the black mattress beneath him. Sam hung on, pounding wildly into the sucking spasms. A few more rapid, sharp thrusts and his cock throbbed deep inside Higgs, flooding his convulsing hole with warm, slippery fluid.

“Holy…fucking…fuck,” Sam said dazedly, collapsing onto him. “I think…I’m gonna die.”

“Ow,” Higgs grunted. “You fuckin’ bag of bricks, you’re sweatin’ all over me.”

“Deal with it,” Sam mumbled into the back of his neck. “I fucked you, now I get to cuddle you.”

“I ain’t your furniture get off,” Higgs said, trying to twist out from under him. “Cuddle me from over there.”

“You’re whatever I say,” Sam retorted drunkenly, as he rolled onto his back. “I say you’re a Higgs-futon.”

Higgs turned over to face him. “You proud of that terrible joke?”

“Yeah, babe. What are you gonna do about it?”

“Babe? Jesus Christ, you’re outta your mind. You fucked your own brains out.”

Sam smiled dreamily and reached out to lay a hand on his cheek. “You’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Like what?”

“With your hair all messed up and your eyeliner halfway down your face. You’re wrecked, babe.”

“God damn it, I forgot I had it on. I probably look like a French whore in a hurricane.”

“Yeah, kinda,” Sam laughed. “I like it.”

“You like it cause I look like you just fucked me.”

Sam folded his arms triumphantly behind his head “And you look like I just fucked you because I did.”

“You most certainly did,” Higgs said, idly tracing Sam’s abdominal scar with his fingertips. “You coulda warned me you had experience, though. I thought you were goin’ in as green as I was.”

“Higgs, I have a baby,” Sam smirked. “You knew I wasn’t a virgin.”

“I meant with men. Women are different, as far as I understand from _Our Bodies, Ourselves_.”

“I’ve never been with a man before.”

Higgs stared at him. “You fuck like a juiced-up jock in a gay porn, Sam. You tellin’ me you came by that talent naturally?”

“I dunno. That was the best sex I’ve ever had, so maybe it’s not a good example for judging talent. And what do you know about porn? You were asexual.”

“Curiosity regarding my inclinations led me to view pornography of many different kinds over the years. All that accomplished was to confirm my absolute disinterest in the sex act.”

“Oh. I hope the real thing didn’t do that.”

“The real thing was…well, I am lying in the evidence of my enthusiastic enjoyment.”

“You want to shower?”

“God, yes. No offense, but this is disgusting.”

“It’s your own enjoyment puddle, Higgs. Mine’s all inside you.”

Higgs made a distasteful grimace. “You look very pleased about it. Is that an evolutionary thing?”

“Probably,” Sam said, as he got up and pulled him to his feet. “Seems stupid since you’re a dude, but genes are dumb as fuck.”

“Sam, do you know what a surfer is?”

“Yeah, babe. I’ve seen like a thousand movies.”

“So you are aware then, that you talk exactly like a surfer.”

“Cowabunga,” Sam grinned.

“Mother of god—start the shower, asshole. And cut the ‘babe’ shit before I call the lions to void you out.”

Sam did as he was told, as far as the shower was concerned, and they stepped in under the steaming spray together.

“Hey, thank you. For letting your guard down. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

Higgs opened his mouth to reply, then paused, gazing down at the water swirling into the drain between their feet.

“I feel…safe with you,” he said at last. “I never felt safe in my life. Not till you showed up at my house that night, after I came back. I knew I’d be ok, as long as you were there. Don’t know why. I just knew.”

“You are safe with me. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Sam took his face in his hands and pulled him down into a slow, soft kiss. Higgs coiled his arms around him, holding him tightly against his naked body. They stood that way for a long while, wrapped up in each other, unwilling to be separated by a single inch of space.

Finally, they drew apart, compelled by the necessity of actually bathing. The safehouse shower had been intended for one, however, and since they were both full-grown men, bathing together involved far more awkward bumping into each other and having to move over to share the water than was conducive to any particular enjoyment of the task.

When they’d finished, they collected their various clothing items and dressed in a leisurely manner. Higgs sat at the table and opened two cans of Timefall Porter, while Sam tossed the empty silver packets into the garbage can and started the bed’s automatic cleaning cycle, which retracted the entire thing into the wall like an oversized dresser drawer.

“I noticed you picked up a stray,” Sam said over his shoulder, as he went to check on Lou. “Where’d Johnny come from?”

“Used to be with the Demens,” Higgs answered. “Dumb as a box of wrenches, but he’s a good kid and a crack shot. Been keepin’ me company and helpin’ out around here.”

“He staying?”

“He doesn’t seem interested in leaving.”

“Cool.”

“That’s alright with you?”

“Sure. More the merrier.”

Higgs swallowed a long draught of his porter, then sat fidgeting awkwardly with the can. “So uh, speaking of adding to our domestic establishment. What would you think about Fragile and me…havin’ a baby.”

Sam turned to face him, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you should be asking _her_ that?”

“Of course, Sam, but in the unlikely event that she were to agree to such a thing, how would you feel about it?”

“Would it make you happy?”

“Evidently.”

“Then it’d make me happy. Probably be good for Lou, too. Not having to grow up an only child, like the three of us did.”

“I think we can all agree on that,” Higgs said, with a bitter laugh.

Sam came over and sat down, taking the can of beer Higgs had opened for him. “I’m glad you and Fragile are reconnecting. How’d that happen?”

“I got sick. Johnny thought I was gonna die and he called her, for some reason. She came and helped me. Said she forgave me.”

“Did you forgive her?”

“Forgive her,” Higgs snorted. “The fuck do I have to forgive her for?”

“Whatever made you angry enough to do what you did to her.”

“No,” Higgs said, shaking his head. “She didn’t mean to hurt me. There’s nothin’ to forgive.”

Sam frowned thoughtfully. “Wait, I didn’t know you could get sick.”

“I wasn’t sick that way. I was starving to death.”

“Starving to death? What the fuck, Higgs, how?”

“You know I can’t live on the kind of food other people live on anymore. I need energy just like Fragile needs blood. When I get charged up…my mind starts to go sideways. You keep me from wandering, but you weren’t around, so I wasn’t taking any power from BTs. By the time Fragile brought me up to the mountain to find some, I was already half dead. The cold finished the job. Turns out repatriating works almost as well as a voidout, though, which is useful information.”

“But you didn’t have to torture yourself like that,” Sam insisted. “You could have powered up and waited for me to balance you back out when I got home.”

“You’ve been gone twenty-one days, Sam. I didn’t think you were comin’ back.”

“Higgs, listen to me,” Sam said, leaning across the table to take his hands. “Lucy died a long time ago. You gave us a chance to say goodbye, and that’s what it was. Goodbye. You and I…there will never be a goodbye for us. We might have to be apart sometimes, but nothing can keep us that way for long. Not even death.”

Higgs squinted doubtfully. “Not even me?”

“Not even you,” Sam smiled. “In case you don’t remember, you’ve shot me, stabbed me, sent BTs to void me out, and handed me a nuclear bomb, but I kept coming back. You know I’ll never stop. No matter what happens, I’ll keep coming back to you. Always.”

“I know,” Higgs said, clearing his throat to conceal a tremor of emotion. “I know you will.”

They sat back and sipped their beers in comfortable silence, broken only by the mechanical whirr of the freshly-cleaned bed reemerging from the wall. Sam glanced over at it, then back at Higgs.

“So…you want to fuck again?”

“You read my mind.”


	21. Almost Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is the only adult left on earth.

Flaherty stood in Fragile’s bathroom, eyeing himself skeptically in the biggest mirror he’d ever seen. He wasn’t used to being able to see his whole self at the same time, but he guessed city people had to be more particular about how they looked. He felt like kind of an idiot pretending to be a fancy gentleman, but he couldn’t wear his black and gold in the city, so these clothes would have to do.

The sweater was made of super soft, dark-grey wool and felt amazing on his skin, even though it fit him more snugly than he’d have preferred. The black trousers were a different kind of cloth that was also very soft and fine. They fit too loose at the waist, so he secured them with his own belt and pulled the sweater down over it.

He didn’t like the look of the glossy, leather shoes and was pleased to find that they were far too small. He supposed Miss Fragile wouldn’t be taking him anywhere dangerous, but he was acutely aware of how thin these clothes were compared to his Demens gear, which made him feel like he hadn’t got anything on but his skin. Wearing his own boots made him a little more comfortable, at least.

His opinion of Fragile had altered quite a bit since she’d showed up and taken the boss wherever they went. She was as angry at that red-dress lady as he was, after they saw the terrible things those people did to Lucy. She’d been kind to him when he was upset, too, and didn’t smack him for being a baby or anything. Maybe she was less like his mom and more like the boss, that way.

The boss talked rough when he was pissed off, but he’d never laid a hand on him. Flaherty had seen him shoot a lot of people and toss some into the tar lake with his powers, but terrorism was the boss’s thing, so he didn’t hold that stuff against him. He did see the boss cut one of their own men’s throats once. That was for disobeying orders and getting other men killed.

Flaherty’s lip curled. O’Connell. He’d have shot that motherfucker himself if the boss had given him a chance. He hadn’t liked shooting Marquez, but a piece of shit like O’Connell deserved death and then some. There’s a difference between shooting people because that’s the job and torturing people because you like it.

There were a few guys like that in the Demens, and Flaherty avoided them like the plague. He figured enjoying cruelty for its own sake must be some kind of mental sickness, and he didn’t want to be around any of them long enough find out if it was contagious or not. A knock at the bathroom door gave him a start and snapped him out of his reverie.

“Johnny, is everything alright?” Fragile’s voice asked through the door.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Flaherty said, opening it hastily. “I’m all done.”

Fragile looked him up and down, smiling. “Well, you clean up very nicely. You are quite a handsome young man, Johnny.”

Flaherty blushed bright pink and fidgeted with the hem of the sweater. “I feel weird. Are you sure it’s ok, me borrowing these?”

“My father certainly won’t mind,” she shrugged. “Besides, we can’t have you running around the city in that uniform. The Demens are not very popular, here.”

“You have a lovely home, ma’am,” he said, as he followed her back out into the living area. He leaned over cautiously and peered out one of the massive windows. “I’ve never been in a place this high up before.”

“It was my family’s home,” she replied, taking up her umbrella. “I don’t really spend much time here. Shall we?”

Much to Flaherty’s relief, rather than making another nauseating jump through the Beach, as they had done to get here, they took an elevator down to a spacious lobby. A stiff-looking man in a fancy blue uniform said good evening to Fragile, and cast a disapproving eye on Flaherty as he opened the door for them. Flaherty thought that snob better mind his business, but he didn’t say so. Miss Fragile probably wouldn’t like it if he had words with her guard, or whatever that guy was.

Fragile noticed him gazing up at all the tall buildings as they walked along the street and smiled. “You haven’t spent a lot of time in the city, have you.”

“No ma’am,” Flaherty answered. “I’m from a little settlement outside Middle Knot.”

“Your parents were preppers, then?”

“I think my dad may have been, but I didn’t know him. My mom said she was from some city in Eastern that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Fragile looked confused. “She said she was?”

“She told a lot of different stories about where she’d lived before. I don’t know if any of them were true. All I’m sure about is that she came out here to work in Middle Knot before I was born.”

“What kind of work did she do?”

“She was, uh…she used to call it the service industry.”

“Ah, I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s alright, ma’am. The boss says I should never be ashamed of where I came from, because adversity builds character.”

“How very wise,” Fragile said, arching a blonde eyebrow. “You seem to be rather fond of your boss.”

“I guess fond is a way to put it,” Flaherty replied noncommittally. “I’d do pretty much anything for him.”

“That kind of personal loyalty seems odd for a member of a military-style extremist organization.”

Flaherty frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s really that odd, ma’am.”

“Don’t you?”

“No, ma’am. Not to contradict you, but a lot of the Demens are loyal to the boss. An organization like that can’t recruit men the way a state military does. You have to get people to believe in you enough to be willing to die for your cause. Most of the men joined on account of the boss being kind of a hero to them.”

Fragile pursed her lips. “A hero. Pardon me if I find that difficult to believe.”

“He is to us,” Flaherty said earnestly. “Some of us wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for him. It’s been getting better since the expeditions came through, but for most people outside the cities, it’s all they can do just to survive. He gave us a chance to do more than that.”

“But Johnny, if you know the UCA expansion made things better, why would you join a terrorist group dedicated to tearing it all down?”

“I didn’t join a terrorist group, ma’am, I joined the boss. I didn’t much care what they were doing, as long as I got to stay with him.”

“Ah, I see. He is a hero to you, personally.”

“He is, ma’am. He saved my life.”

Their conversation was put on hold for the moment, as they had arrived at the sushi restaurant. A lovely young woman with black hair greeted Fragile by name and asked after her companion. Fragile introduced him as her cousin Johnny, as they were shown to a low, black table where they had to sit on little square pillows on the floor.

Flaherty kept his mouth shut and followed Fragile’s lead, grateful that she seemed content to do all the talking and ordering and everything. He didn’t understand Japanese and he couldn’t tell what was being said, but apparently food and beverages were on their way.

“You said Higgs saved your life,” Fragile said, when the waitress went away. “What happened?”

“My mom died when I was twelve. Some neighbors took me in and taught me about god and how to mind my manners and all that, but they had a lot of little kids and not much to go around. I didn’t want to be a burden anymore, so when I was fifteen I ran away and starting trying to make my own living.

I got by scrounging scrap and trading with preppers for food and supplies, but it was hard out there. One day, I tried to steal some supplies from a MULE camp. It was stupid, but I hadn’t eaten in days and I was so hungry I was willing to try anything. Anyway, the MULEs caught me and beat me up pretty bad. Took all my gear, even my boots, and left me knocked out in the desert.

When I came to, this tall man in a black hood and VOG mask was standing over me asking if I was alive. I said I didn’t know. He laughed and said he’d take that for a yes. Then he sat me up and gave me a protein bar and some water, and asked what happened. When I told him about the MULEs and how I got my ass kicked for stealing from them, he growled and cussed like the devil. I thought he was gonna kill me. Turned out he was saying he was gonna kill the MULEs.

I was just a scrawny kid then, and I told him I wouldn’t be worth much to him in a fight, but he made me go with him anyway. He gave me a gun, but I mostly hung around being scared while he shot the MULE camp to shit. Then he made the ones that were left give me back my things and load up all the rest of their cargo in a truck.

He asked if I could drive and I said I could, so we hopped in and took off with their gear and their truck. After we’d been driving a while, I got up the guts to ask who he was. He said, ‘The name’s Higgs, but you can call me boss. Welcome to the Demens.’ That was that. I never wanted to do anything else.”

“So, he found you in the desert and helped you when you were a child,” Fragile said musingly. “I suppose it makes sense that you would be so attached to him.”

Flaherty looked at her closely. “I mean no disrespect, ma’am, but I know you and the boss have a bad history. Still, when I told you how sick he was, you came right away. You seem pretty attached to him, too.”

“I suppose I am,” she said, with a sigh. “I convinced myself I hated him, but I was only angry. And I was…disappointed in him. He could have been such a force for good, with his intelligence and charisma, not to mention his DOOMs abilities. He chose to be a destructive force instead. Though, I suppose the EE had a lot to do with that. He was much worse once she had him under her influence.”

“The EE, ma’am?” Flaherty asked.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned that,” she said, coloring slightly. “I don’t really understand all of it, anyway.”

This was an opportune time for the lull in the conversation, as the food arrived at that moment, and there were all kinds of plates and things being set on the table. Flaherty had never seen food like this. He wasn’t exactly sure it _was_ food. It looked like a lot of pretty little sculptures, and he didn’t feel particularly inclined to taste any of it.

Fragile took a bunch of different things and stuck them on a plate for him, though, so he had to eat them. This turned out to be less of a trying ordeal than he had anticipated, and he found he rather enjoyed most of the meal. He liked the little bits of red tuna on top of cubes made of rice the best. The worst thing was a cylinder of black seaweed with rice inside, and these tiny orange ball things all over the top.

He nearly gagged when he put it in his mouth, but he swallowed it anyway, not wanting to be rude. That made Fragile laugh, however, and he resolutely consumed everything he was offered after that. His stifled grimaces provided no end of amusement to his hostess, and he was rewarded with one of those angelic little laughs each time he ate some revolting thing with octopus arms or sea urchins on it.

An hour flew by in this pleasant way, and soon the waiters came to clear away the plates. Fragile didn’t make any move toward leaving, but Flaherty didn’t mind. It was nice to sit at a real table and drink out of these little, round ceramic cups instead of canteens. She was drinking something called sake, which he had tasted but disliked immensely, so he’d stuck to the hot tea. As they were sipping their beverages, her cufflinks chirped for the fifth time since they’d been sitting there. Again, she checked them and ignored the call.

“Don’t worry about me, if you need to get that, ma’am,” Flaherty offered. “Seems like it’s urgent.”

“Oh no, it’s just my friend,” Fragile said, then hesitated. “Actually…I think I will step outside for a minute. Excuse me.”

While Fragile was out taking her call, Flaherty sat contentedly sipping his hot tea and enjoying the warm feeling of the cup in his hands. It turned out some city things weren’t so bad. Sushi had its good points and these clothes were a lot more comfortable, now he was used to them. Plus, the restaurant smelled nice and everything was clean and looked like they made it pretty on purpose. Not that he intended let his time in the city give him airs or anything, but he was sure he’d never enjoy eating rations in a tent with a bunch of sweaty men as much, after this.

“Sorry about that,” Fragile said, when she returned a very few minutes later, looking oddly flurried. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Flaherty replied, hopping to his feet and following her.

Fragile said goodbye to the hostess as they walked out the door, then turned to him. “I have to go and see my friends right now. I can’t take you back to Sam’s safehouse, so I suppose you will have to tag along.”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude, ma’am,” Flaherty said awkwardly. “I don’t mind hanging around the boss’s shelter by myself.”

She wavered, biting her lip, then shook her head. “I think it would be best to give those two a wide berth for a couple of days. In any event, it seems you are part of the inner circle now, so you may as well meet the others.”

“The, uh…the others, ma’am?”

“Two of them, at least. Lockne and Målingen.”

Flaherty frowned. “The asteroid craters?”

“The twin scientists, but yes, they were named after those craters. Shall we?”

Fragile held out her gloved hand and Flaherty took it reluctantly, looking like a child being made to go to the dentist.

“You’ll get used to it,” she laughed, as she hooked her other arm around him. “Just think happy thoughts.”

Sam shivered as he stepped out onto the safehouse platform, his breath expelling plumes of steam into the cold, clear air of early morning. He crossed the black gravel to the shelter and climbed up its sloped back onto the roof, where he sat cross-legged, facing the eastern horizon. Once he’d got himself situated comfortably, he closed his eyes and began to take deep, meditative breaths.

Accustomed to isolation since childhood, he found that the constant presence of others—even those he loved and whose company he enjoyed—drained him, and this drain would begin to tell upon him if he did not retreat ever so often. To him, time alone was just as necessary as the pure energy Higgs required to recharge, or the cryptobiotes Fragile was constantly consuming to restore her blood.

His work for Bridges had been perfect for him, since it had taken him out into the world by himself for long stretches of time, but he hadn’t always been so free. At a very young age, he had developed a trick of finding places to hide, where he could escape the bustle of the White House. The various people responsible for his education didn’t understand this behavior and scolded him for it. In response, Sam had simply taught himself to slip away unnoticed and seek the relief of solitude out of doors, where no one wanted to go searching for him.

During his unguided meditations in the open air outside, he had become gradually aware of breath that was not his. Of a heartbeat other than his own. A profound and ancient rhythm, not human, but alive. The breath of the ocean, the heartbeat of the earth. The beauty of it staggered him. He had no words adequate to describe to himself what he felt, only that he would do anything to hear it again.

So, he learned to quiet his mind and to listen. In these still and silent moments, the earth began to speak to him. He understood, at last, that his life was her life. Her breath flowed in his lungs, her heart beat in his chest, and her strength sustained him.

He grew to love this great mother, who cradled all life in her bosom and whose wrath was terrible to behold. He grieved for the loss of each one of her children, bled for each wound that had marred her noble countenance. In return, she gave him rest in the lofty silence of her mountains, and consolation in the songs of her rivers. A gust of wind swirled past, playfully ruffling his hair, and he opened his eyes.

Above him, the sun shone white and brilliant, glorious even behind its chiral veil. As it ever had been and ever would be. For the sun lay far outside this troubled sphere, untouched by the joys and sorrows of the brief and insignificant creatures, who walked a few days among these broad valleys and rolling hills, and dared to call the earth their own.

He cast his gaze upon the caldera of the massive crater, with its perpetual effusion of blasted debris and tar-black human forms. Here, the wounds were fresh, and the sorrow sharp and poignant. He turned away to look out over the ragged desert, with is time-gnawed boulders and wind-bitten sands.

Strange, that such a place as this should be the home in which his heart had at last found rest. It resided now in these blackened hills, held in the keeping of the one to whom it belonged. Driven no more to wander alone, desiring none for his companion but heaven above and the road below, like the vagabond in the old poem. He had found his soul’s true mate.

For the first time, he found that he was able to admit this to himself without that former pang of guilt, no longer believing, as he once had, that he was disloyal to his first love by allowing this new love to take the foremost place in his heart.

He had loved his wife dearly. As much as he had been capable of it, in those days. Lucy had drawn him out of his irreligious monasticism and broken the ground for the first seeds of human attachment to sprout. Not yet tilled by time and trial, however, the soil had been hard and inhospitable, and the fruit of her labor had all but withered on the vine.

Finding himself unable to give his heart to her entirely, he had pulled quietly away and let distance spread out between them, as if this would buffer her from the pain his failure might cause her. He had been wrong, and they had both suffered grievously from his error.

But the heart changes with loss and suffering, and with the wisdom gained by these. And it grows in its capacity to love, as it grows in its capacity to accept love. When this new love was sown, it had fallen on soil thoroughly upturned by grief. The sharp seed had pierced like a thorn, and its roots had reached deep, to crack the bedrock and tap the very cistern of his soul.

He had blamed himself severely for pushing her away, but Lucy had always understood him better than he had himself. When they met again on that Beach, she had no word of reproach for him. He found her at peace and filled with love, wanting nothing more from their meeting than to give him comfort and absolution.

The unraveling of the tapestry of circumstances had been part and parcel of their reunion. She knew of Higgs through Lou’s memories, and though she seemed to think Sam’s choice to take the herald of death as his lover a rather odd one, she was genuinely happy that he wouldn’t be alone. He had also learned things from her that Amelie had left obscure to him, or outright lied about. Among these was Lucy’s agency in her death, along with her knowledge of what would become of her and the baby.

She had not known they intended to conceal it from Sam for so long, however, nor that they planned the voidout in the city to cover it up. Not till it was far too late. In former days, this revelation would have filled him with resentment and anger. But he had no more room in his heart for such things. Thus, their final parting was long and filled with tears, but without bitterness.

Sam sighed wearily. It would be difficult to make the others understand why Lucy had made her impossible choice. The power that moved the pieces on the board had chosen her as its instrument. Though she grieved at the wound her death would inflict upon her husband, she had acted from love, and had done her part with faith and courage, and full clarity of purpose.

Had Sam failed in the end, her faith would have been unrewarded and her sacrifice in vain. But he had not failed. And it had been she who made his success a possibility. The world may never know who had truly been its savior, but Sam would at least see to it that Lucy’s daughter knew. For it would be Lucy’s daughter who led humanity into its next phase of existence.

Louise, the child of their short-lived union. Life’s answer to the extinction. The first of an evolved species, no longer human, by the current definition of the word. And there would be others like her. Quite possibly there already were. The children of the doomed would rise from the ashes of the Stranding and find that they were strong.

Sam had been the bridge by which this new species had crossed into the world, poised to shape the future in their image. Higgs would be the blade by which the bonds of dying humanity were severed, so they might pass out of this world and leave it in the stewardship of their successors. When the last of the old guard had departed the battlements, the bridge would fall and the blade would crumble.

But the road would be long and many years lay between them and their final rest. Sam had made his choice when he refused the extinction, not knowing there would be one who would share his fate. Higgs had not been given the same choice, because his part had already been assigned to him. Sam wondered if he would have refused it, had he known its ultimate purpose.

After he’d felt Higgs repatriate but hadn’t found him at his shelter, and again after he’d left him wandering in his fevered dreams the first time, he’d gone to speak with Lockne and Målingen. From them, he learned more of the truth of his own purpose, and how Higgs and their connection fit into the grand design.

He understood from these conversations that his DOOMs extinction factor was beyond anything they had originally imagined. They had missed it at first, because it was entirely passive. He couldn’t use his power to control BTs—or even see them on his own, for that matter—nor to summon objects, or travel using the Beach. He was, in essence, the binding force keeping death in check. No active participation required. He simply was.

That role suited him just fine, as far as he was concerned. He was frankly sick and goddamned tired of saving the world. He had never wanted any part of this apocalyptic grandiosity and would very much prefer to be left alone. His highest ambition now was to spend his remaining time in peace, with his daughter and the man he loved.

Higgs was Sam’s polar opposite, and his role as shepherd of the dead suited him just as perfectly. He was a man on fire, with a mind that was ceaselessly active. If he didn’t have something important to do with his excess energy, he became agitated and restless. Bored Higgs tended to resort to manufacturing his own amusement, often by way of interesting explosions, and the newborn UCA didn’t need any more of those. Not at the moment, anyhow.

Maybe time would bring patience and perspective, but Sam was aware that as the situation currently stood, if he wasn’t there to keep him from wandering, as he’d put it, Higgs would regress very quickly into his kill ‘em all and let god sort ‘em out mentality. Sam’s physical presence seemed to be the only way to smooth down his sharp edges and anchor him to the world of the living.

Sam didn’t mind taking the stabilizing role in the relationship, so long as it didn’t cross over into parental. Higgs was not an actual child, even if he was quite a child compared to himself. Something like seventeen years younger in age, and even younger than that in life experience. Not that Sam was the most worldly human being on the planet. Still, someone had once said that, though the distance between one and two is almost nothing, the distance between zero and one is infinite.

It struck Sam sharply, like a kick to the gut, what a tremendous burden had been laid on that young man’s shoulders. A deep pang of sympathy shot through him and made his heart ache. Higgs had been a killer and a terrorist. He had tried to bring about the end of all life on the planet. But his mind had been twisted by systematic abuse, and his back broken by a will far superior to his own. Nothing he had done could justify asking him to carry the weight of the world alone.

But Sam would never let him carry it alone. Though he couldn’t carry it for him, he would be with him every step of the way. When they reached the end of this long road, they would reach it together. He could see no version of the future without Higgs by his side. He was woven into his being, as two trees whose roots have grown entwined until they are indistinguishable, one from another.

He had spoken truly when he told Higgs he’d fallen in love with him at first sight. Or rather, at first word, since he’d seen him when he voided out Central Knot, but he hadn’t spoken. The moment he did, that voice had flowed into Sam’s blood and set him ablaze with a wild desire to abandon his mission and follow this man, wherever he might lead. Fortunately, his determination to keep his word and save his sister had been stronger than that reckless impulse. But the venom had already entered the bite.

After that first meeting, he found a gnawing ache growing within him. A constant whisper in his mind, prompting him to pursue and possess him, no matter what the cost. It had tormented him in all his quiet moments. Disturbed his rest. Made him wake fevered and breathless, believing he had heard that voice calling to him in the dark of the night. He knew now, of course, that he had believed he heard Higgs calling to him because he had been, and that he had been answering the call, whether either of them had known it or not.

Their connection had been as instantaneous and intense as it had been inexplicable and inconvenient—it had hardly been comforting to know the man who was doing everything in his power to thwart him knew his exact location at every moment, and could intrude into his presence with a thought. They each felt the other’s pull, like a cord drawn taut between them, and to resist it was to suffer. But suffer they had, being men of strong will and unwavering devotion to their opposing causes, and they had maintained their mutual antagonism to the bitter end. How they had both been deceived.

As immediately and thoroughly as he had fallen for him, Sam’s physical attraction to Higgs had come later and was kindled slowly. The visions of the two of them locked in bloody, brutal combat gradually shifted in their tenor. The lithe body moving against his own was stripped bare of its armor. Pounding fists became grasping hands, that taunting voice still calling his name, as the duel became a dance.

These images had disturbed him at first, but there had been a strange thrill in them. A secret longing for Higgs to do that very thing. To appear in the flesh as he did in his dreams and lay hands on him, to whatever end. He laughed to himself, wondering if the distillations from his shower water during that time had been particularly useful to Heartman.

Of course, none of the idle fancies in which he had indulged in these moments of weakness had compared to the actual consummation of their attachment. Not for him. Not for Higgs, either, as far as he could tell. The symphony of obscenity he had drawn from those lips as he fucked him should have been ranked among the achievements of the great composers.

His brow furrowed and he shifted uneasily in his seated position. His sexual desire for his beloved was always strongly tempered by his awareness of how damaged the man was. He had held back for a long time, wanting to let Higgs get comfortable with him and adjust to the relationship before they were more physically intimate. When he’d finally given in, it had been partly from a desperate need to reconnect with him, and he wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing.

Evident enjoyment of the physical act didn’t mean everything was ok with Higgs internally. His combative behavior before Sam had made him cut the shit and drop the mask was worrisome. Equating sex with violence was fine for advertisers hawking products to young, ignorant males, but it wasn’t an encouraging mindset in which to find one’s partner.

All of that would have to reveal itself in time, and he’d watch Higgs carefully until he had a clearer picture of his emotional state. For now, he had another task in hand that weighed heavily upon his mind. One that would certainly be unpleasant and would doubtless be protracted and complicated, as well.

The chiral network, in its current incarnation, could not be allowed to continue. Not after what Higgs had shown him in the ICU, and learning what he had from his meeting with Lucy. According to Higgs, Fragile felt the same, and would likely assist Sam in convincing the other members of the circle to support him. Then he would have to confront Die-Hardman about it. All that sweat and blood and grinding toil, and it had now become his duty to demand that the president agree to tear down the very network he had worked so hard to build.

He heaved another deep sigh and stretched out flat on his back on the shelter roof, watching an inverted rainbow shimmering in and out of view in the pale-grey sky. At least it wasn’t fucking raining. That was something.


	22. Don't Be So Serious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF BABY-RELATED FAMILY FLUFF
> 
> _______________________________

“What in god’s name is that thing?” Higgs said, staring at Sam aghast.

“Tactical baby carrier,” Sam replied tranquilly. “Cool, right?”

“Cool?” Higgs snorted. “There is nothin’ cool about that ridiculous front backpack, Sam.”

He watched dubiously as Sam pulled the straps of the black, military-style bag over his shoulders and tightened them.

“It’s not that bad,” Sam said, eyeing himself in the mirror. “Look, it has all these utility pockets.”

“I can see that. You’re not actually planning on goin’ out in public with it, are you?”

“Yep.”

Higgs sighed and shook his head. “I suppose it won’t look much stupider than carryin’ her around in a jar, but are you sure it’s…”

“Sure it’s what?”

“Nothin’,” he said, crossing his arms sullenly. “It’s none of my business.”

“Aw, Higgs,” Sam laughed “You’re worried about her.”

“I am not.”

“You are!”

“No, I’m not,” Higgs retorted. “If you want to go around wearin’ your newborn baby in a canvas knapsack right in the middle of your center-mass, all exposed to timefall and stray bullets and god knows what else, you go right ahead.”

“You’re just jumping us to Lockne’s place. There’s no timefall or stray bullets on the Beach.”

“That’s another thing. How do you know it’s even safe to take her through the Beach?”

“She’s been there a lot of times,” Sam said, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead. “It’s gonna be ok, I promise.”

“She’s your baby, you do whatever you want,” Higgs groused. “You gonna load her up, or what?”

Sam went over to the cradle pod and lifted out the impossibly tiny infant. She had been sleeping soundly, but being removed from the pod woke her. There was a tense moment of silence while she wound up like a starting pitcher, her little face turning pink and then crimson, before she let loose a volley of earsplitting wails.

“It’s ok, Lou. It’s me, daddy,” Sam cooed, rocking and bouncing her soothingly, to no observable effect. “Shit, I need to adjust this thing. It’s gonna be way too big. Higgs, could you?”

Higgs got up and accepted the bawling infant, cradling her against his chest while Sam made adjustments to the highly suspect bag that he apparently considered to be an acceptable baby transportation device. As this was going on, Lou’s wails calmed and then quieted altogether.

“Hey, what do you know,” Sam smiled. “She likes you.”

Higgs frowned. “What? No, she doesn’t. She just got tired of cryin’.”

“You don’t know Lou. She never gets tired of crying. Look at her, she’s so happy now.”

Higgs peered down at Lou, who had got her mouth onto his shoulder and was gnawing on it, making little warbling sounds as she did so.

“The fuck do I do?” he asked Sam, in a panicked undertone. “Why’s she doin’ that?”

“Babies chew on stuff,” Sam shrugged. “She’s making happy noises, try talking to her.”

“Hey there, Louise,” Higgs said softly, craning his neck to look at her again. “Uh. How’s it goin’?”

“Fbthpp!” Lou replied, ejecting a spray of drool all over him with her vehement assertion.

“That’s because you’re eatin’ my shirt, darlin’,” Higgs explained, wiping his face with the sleeve of his free arm. “Clothes don’t taste good.”

“Uuuu?”

“Clothes. The things I’m wearin’ to cover my skin. We gotta get you some of your own, pretty soon.”

“Awoo. Oooboo,” she burbled, writhing plaintively.

“Alright, alright,” Higgs said, leaning her back on his arms, so she could see his face. “That better?”

Lou gave another frustrated whimper and stuck out both her tiny hands, flailing them in his direction. He lifted her up and leaned closer, till she managed to get them onto his face.

“Wah,” she breathed, widening her already huge eyes and looking so absurdly amazed, that he couldn’t help laughing.

This seemed to startle her, and for a second, he thought she was going to cry. Then he realized her facial contortions were an attempt to arrange her untrained muscles into an echoing smile. This, ironically, made him want to cry, for some reason he could not comprehend. He looked up at Sam, who gave a supportive (though not particularly helpful) thumbs-up.

Meanwhile, Lou had worked her fingers down his cheeks onto his beard, which pleased her vastly. She immediately balled her hands into little fists and yanked on it, giving a loud squeal of triumph. Sam and Higgs both burst out laughing. Thus encouraged, Lou squeaked and kicked her legs, tugging lustily at his beard all the while.

“Looks like Lou’s got a new favorite,” Sam observed. “Maybe you should carry her.”

“Nice try, Samuel,” Higgs said, still smiling down at her. “You acquired that ridiculous baby bag and you’re stuck with it.”

“That’s not the only ridiculous thing I’m stuck with,” Sam smirked. “And Sam’s—”

“Not short for Samuel. I know. But I like callin’ you that and I’m not gonna stop. Consider it a term of endearment.”

“Whatever you say, babe,” Sam replied breezily, at which Higgs shot him a menacing glance. “Turnabout’s fair play. We should go, though. The Snakes have been expecting us.”

Higgs held Lou out to let him take her, but the moment Sam had her in his arms, her face went beet red and she let out another tremendous howl, twisting around and reaching for Higgs. Sam handed her back hastily. The howling immediately ceased.

“Shit,” he laughed. “Looks like you’re gonna be wearing the tactical baby carrier after all.”

“Absolutely not.” Higgs attempted to hand her back again, but the wailing recommenced with redoubled energy, and the effort was abandoned.

“Come on, Higgs, we’re already late,” Sam said, when she was quiet again. “Be an adult and wear the baby bag.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Do it.”

“I’m not gonna.”

“Well, yes you are.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Higgs narrowed his eyes. “You want me wearin’ that thing, you’re gonna have to knock me out and put it on me yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sam rejoined. “I can’t punch you while you’re holding Lou.”

“Maaaawa-wabaaa!” Lou boisterously interjected.

“No, Lou. No one’s punching anyone. Higgs is gonna put on the carrier and we’re gonna take you to meet your aunties. Would you like that?”

“Bububbbbfffft,” Lou said, spraying Higgs’ neck with more drool.

“You’re spittin’ all over me, Louise,” Higgs chided. “That is not very ladylike. And I’m not doin’ what your daddy just said, so ignore him.”

“Higgs, if you want to have your own baby, you’re gonna have to learn to do this kind of stuff,” Sam pointed out.

“I don’t want to have my own baby,” Higgs shot back. “I want Fragile to have my baby.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Do you think she’s gonna agree to carry your baby and give birth to it, and also raise it, all on her own?”

“Well, not when you say it like that, I don’t!”

“Ok, so what did you think you and her having a baby would mean?”

Higgs shifted uncomfortably. “I thought I’d, you know, contribute the necessary material and the rest would kinda just…work itself out.”

“Wow,” Sam laughed. “You’ve got a lot to learn about being a father, Higgs.”

“I know that, Sam.” Higgs sighed and turned away, shaking his head. “But what’s the point? I never had a daddy except the one that beat the shit outta me until I stabbed his drunk ass. That’s what I’m workin’ with. Plus all the terrorism. And the whole death thing. So maybe she’d be better off not havin’ me around too much.”

Sam coiled his arms around Higgs’ waist and rested his forehead on his back, between his shoulder blades. “Don’t talk that way. Lou would not be better off without you around, and neither would I.”

“I meant—nevermind. I’m just not cut out for this fatherhood shit, is all.”

“Higgs, you’re Lou’s other parent now, whether you’re cut out for it or not. I know it’s a lot, but there’s plenty of time to get used to it before you have to worry about another kid.”

Sam felt Higgs tense up in his arms as if he meant to pull away, but he didn’t release him from the embrace.

“The fuck you mean, other parent?” Higgs demanded, trying to twist around to look at him.

“You’re my partner,” Sam said. “She’s my child. Congratulations, you’re a papa.”

“Oh, no. Don’t you dare start with that baby-talk nonsense. You’re settin’ a bad example for Lou.”

“Bah! Bah!” Lou proclaimed

“See? She’s learnin’ bad words from you.”

“Papa’s like, the least bad word either of us have ever said.”

“Baba!” Lou asserted, bouncing in Higgs’ arms.

“Hey, knock it off,” Higgs said to her. “You’re supposed to be on my side, you little traitor.”

Lou blinked sweetly up at him. “Baba.”

“You heard the lady, baba,” Sam laughed. “Enjoy your new name.”

“Fine,” Higgs grumbled. “Lou can call me ba—papa. But there is no earthly power that’s gettin’ me to wear that stupid baby bag.”

Flaherty hadn’t been overjoyed when he was informed that he’d be spending a few days in Mountain Knot with Miss Fragile and her friend. He liked Miss Fragile well enough, but he wasn’t so sure about Miss Lockne. She was very kind to him and was the prettiest woman he'd ever seen aside from Miss Fragile, but she talked like she was two people, and even interrupted and argued with herself. That would have been one thing, but Miss Fragile indulged her insanity and addressed her like she was two people, too.

After a while, he got more used to it, but it was still disconcerting hearing her change between personalities like that mid-sentence. Especially with her two different colored eyes and her way of suddenly zoning out and staring at a wall for five straight minutes in the middle of a conversation. It didn’t seem to bother Miss Fragile any, but Flaherty thought even crazy people should try and be polite.

All that aside, the prospect of being a captive guest in the home of a complete stranger, totally bonkers or no, was not one he had relished. For one, he didn’t like being away from the boss, now he was alive again. Second, this place looked like a really fancy hotel and he was always afraid he was going to break something expensive with his big, clumsy body. Mostly, he hated not having anything to do.

There was nothing that needed repairing and no guard rotations to take. They made him go to dinner with them at a different place in the city every night and they never ate any lunch, so there weren’t even that many dishes to wash. Just coffee mugs and oatmeal bowls, and there was a machine that washed those anyway (on a side note, if he never saw oatmeal again, that’d be fine with him). He wasn’t allowed to wander out by himself, so when Miss Fragile wasn’t there, he had to hang around Miss Lockne’s lab and watch her talk to herself, which he found troubling and tedious.

Everything changed, however, when Miss Lockne gave him a data pad and showed him how to access the Bridges online library. Then the dawn burst over the horizon and there was the whole world, living and brilliant, and right at his fingers’ ends. Every book that had been saved or recovered, or written since the Stranding.

Having the free hours and the means to do so for the first time in his life, he plunged in headfirst and immersed himself entirely in the written word. After that, time seemed to speed itself up. Suddenly there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to contain all the reading he wanted to do. He was making his way assiduously through the collected works of Mark Twain, when Miss Fragile told him the boss and Sam Bridges were bringing the baby over tonight.

He asked what he could do to help, but as always, there wasn’t anything that needed doing. So, he went on with his reading until an hour before they were set to arrive, when he changed into the clothes Miss Lockne had laid out, then returned to his usual spot and got right back to his book. Huck Finn was just about to expose the two frauds pretending to be those nice girls’ uncles and he was eager to learn the outcome.

“He’s so adorable,” Lockne whispered to Fragile. “It’s too bad we can’t keep him.”

Fragile peered over at Flaherty, who was lying on the living room floor in front of the holographic fireplace, engrossed in his data pad.

“What is he doing?” she asked. “He has been glued to that thing ever since you gave it to him.”

“He’s reading. He lit up like a Christmas tree when we showed him the Bridges online library. Isn’t that sweet?”

“Sweet?” Fragile replied, raising an eyebrow. “You two know he was a terrorist, right?”

“He’s not anymore,” Målingen reasoned. “Besides, you said he was just with the Demens out of loyalty to Higgs.”

“Loyalty is an indication of good character,” Lockne added. “And it’s been nice having him around to keep creeps from hitting on us.”

Fragile made a face. “Does that happen often?”

“Not really,” Målingen said. “But there’s this weasely guy down in materiel command, who’s always ogling Lockne and offering to hand-deliver our supply orders in this gross, greasy way. He totally yucks us out. Anyway, Johnny went with us last time and just stood there towering behind us not saying anything—you should’ve seen the look on weasel-guy’s face. He was practically shaking in his boots. It was awesome.”

“A benefit of walking around with an obviously dangerous man,” Fragile laughed. “I suppose a large dog would accomplish the same thing.”

“You think Johnny looks dangerous?” Lockne mused, biting her lip. “Huh. I never thought of him like that. He’s so good and polite.”

“Yeah, but pay attention to his face when he’s not smiling,” Målingen put in. “You can tell he’s seen some shit. He has that look, you know?”

“And it doesn’t hurt that he is over six feet tall and built like a prize fighter,” Fragile said slyly. “But I’m sure you two didn’t notice that.”

“I did,” Målingen chirped. “Lockne did, too, don’t let her fool you.”

“Only aesthetically. He’s way too young for us.”

“Yeah, you gotta let that paint dry,” Målingen agreed. “But he’ll make someone a very lucky guy or gal one day, just you wait.”

“Speaking of which, the guys are still bringing the baby, right? We said seven but it’s almost eight.”

“If Sam said they would be here, they will,” Fragile shrugged. “I don’t know what could be keeping them. Maybe Higgs is putting on his face.”

As if the mention of the name had summoned its owner, a burst of shuddering flames and rush of tearing atmosphere exploded into the living room, announcing the arrival of the aforementioned belated guest and his retinue. Flaherty leaped to his feet, looking guilty for some reason. Fragile remained where she was, leaning indolently against the kitchen counter.

“Hey, guys,” Lockne smiled, coming forward to greet the party. “Aw, there’s the little lady. How’s she doing, is the cradle working ok?”

“Hey Lockne. Hey Mama,” Sam said, leaning in to kiss their cheek. “Lou’s doing great, as far as I can tell. The cradle is awesome, thanks.”

“Hi, Higgs,” they said, turning to smile up at him.

“Evenin’ ladies,” Higgs replied smoothly, taking their hand to kiss it, at which Sam rolled his eyes. “I swear, you get prettier every time I see you.”

“Aw, come on, you’re just saying that,” they laughed, at which Fragile rolled her eyes. “Hey, your eyebrows grew back. Wow, and your hair has gotten a lot longer since the last time you were here.”

“I know, I’m all shaggy,” Higgs said, combing his fingers self-consciously through the mop of dark-brown hair at the crown of his head, which immediately fell back into his face. “It don’t look that bad, does it?”

“No, it looks really good,” they beamed, manifesting the slightest flush of pink in their pale cheeks. “You look—yeah. Really…good.”

Higgs flashed a white-toothed smile and gave a little bow. “That is very kind of you, my dears. Hey, Fragile, how you been?”

“Quite well, thank you,” Fragile called back across the room. “Can I get anyone a drink?”

There was a round of responses in the affirmative, and Sam went to the kitchen to assist her and survey the snack situation.

“So…can we hold her?” Lockne and Målingen asked hopefully.

“I’d be much obliged if you would,” Higgs replied, with palpable relief in his voice. “I’m gonna need a little help, though. Sam strapped me into this heathen contraption and I have no idea how it works.”

As Lockne was deciphering the complex array of buckles that kept the carrier strapped across his chest, he turned his head and cast an eye on Flaherty, who still stood by the fireplace, observing everything silently, with his arms crossed on his chest.

“Hey, Johnny,” Higgs said. “You been behaving yourself?”

“Of course I have, boss,” Flaherty answered, with a touch of injured indignation. “I always behave myself.”

“Johnny has been a perfect gentleman and we have enjoyed his company very much,” Lockne affirmed. She had succeeded in getting everything unfastened and was carefully lifting the sleeping infant out of the carrier. “What is this thing she’s wrapped up in? Sam, is this one of your shirts?”

“Yep,” Sam answered from the kitchen, with his mouth full of something. “I don’t have any baby clothes. She’s wearing my shirts till we get some.”

“I have a few things she can wear,” Lockne said offhandedly, as she carried Lou to the staircase. “We’re going to give her a quick exam and take her vitals, ok? Ew, and change this diaper.”

Sam grinned. “Cool, thank you.”

When she and the baby had vanished up the stairs, Sam returned to his conversation with Fragile. Higgs deposited the odious carrier on the floor beside the sofa and joined Flaherty by the fireplace.

“How you been, boss?” Flaherty asked nervously.

“Same as always,” Higgs replied, looking him up and down. “What in the high-flyin’ fuck are you wearin’?”

“I didn’t pick it out, boss,” Flaherty said, straightening the hem of his dark-blue sweater. “They won’t let me wear my black and gold in the city, but Miss Lockne had some men’s clothes for some reason. I had to wear Miss Fragile’s dad’s old clothes, too. At least these ones fit right.”

“That they do. You’d almost pass for a city boy, only you’re nowhere near soft enough. How do you like this place?”

“It’s ok, I guess. I sure am glad you came, though. I’m ready to get out of here.”

Higgs smirked. “What, you don’t like livin’ in a big-ass house with those beautiful women?”

“Well, no, I mean…I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, boss. Miss Fragile and Miss Lockne are real nice ladies. And I never had my own bedroom with a real bed in it my whole life. But I don’t do anything useful, here. They don’t need my help fixing things and I can’t make heads or tails of the stuff Miss Lockne does in that lab. I miss having work to do.”

“I certainly understand that. The good news is, you can come home with us, if you like. Bad news is, you’ll still be stayin’ in my shelter, with the touchy heating system and that miserable little cot.”

“I don’t mind, boss,” Flaherty said eagerly. “I just want to be where you are.”

Higgs chuckled and shook his head. “Johnny, you’re makin’ it real hard to pretend I don’t give a shit about you. Could you try and act a little bit more like a shithead street kid?”

“I never believed you didn’t give a shit about me, boss,” Flaherty said frankly. “I mean, I was always scared of you, cause you’re really scary. But you saved me from those MULEs and gave me a job, and you made me learn to read and all that. I figured you probably liked me ok.”

Higgs smiled. “I like you ok, Johnny. Tell you the truth…you were the closest thing I had to a friend for a long time. But if you breathe a word of that to anyone, I will have to cut your throat on principle. You understand.”

Flaherty nodded, unable to speak at the moment, staring at Higgs with his big, brown eyes wide and shining, as if he was going to cry.

“Alright, don’t go all mushy on me, boy,” Higgs said gruffly. “What you been up to since you don’t have any work to do?”

Flaherty recollected his wits and bent down to pick up the data pad. “Miss Lockne gave me this thing. It has access to a library with about a million books in it.”

Higgs raised an eyebrow. “You been readin’?”

“Yes, sir, boss. I’m about halfway through Huckleberry Finn and then I’m gonna read Life on the Mississippi, cause you said I should read those if I got a chance.”

“That’s—very good,” Higgs said, clearing his throat to conceal a sudden tremor in his voice. “Good boy.”

“Hey, boss? Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Is Miss Lockne ok, like, in her head? Cause to me, she seems a little bit…insane.”

“I won’t disagree with you, but what makes you say that?”

“It’s her whole thing, you know? How she talks like she’s two different people all the time. And I don’t understand why everyone goes along with it and acts like she _is_ two people, when I can see with my own eyes there’s just one of her.”

“Your eyesight’s excellent in this world, Johnny, but don’t trust it too much when it comes to the intangible. Miss Lockne don’t talk like she’s two people. She talks for herself and her sister talks for herself. They both just happen to live in that one body.”

Flaherty almost laughed, then frowned, seeing that his commander was in earnest.

“Wait, what do you mean, boss? How can they—” he broke off and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You mean like, conjoined twins? Does she have a little baby sister stuck to her somewhere?”

Higgs laughed aloud and slapped him on the back. “I really have missed you. You’re not too far off, only it’s not physical. When Målingen died, her soul refused to cross over. She’s on the other side, but she’s hangin’ onto her sister. Not a lot of people could've done that, but they have a powerful connection. I can feel it all through my bones.”

“I don’t know, boss,” Flaherty said, glancing around doubtfully, as if evidence of this spiritual link would somehow make itself apparent. “I don’t feel anything.”

“You’re not the herald of death, son,” Higgs replied imperturbably. “Feelin’ those things comes with the territory.”

“If you say so. I still think she’s got some screws loose.” He glanced over at Sam and Fragile and lowered his voice again. “Like, there’s this room upstairs and it’s decorated like a nursery. With a crib and toys and baby things and all that. Only there’s no baby here and if Miss Lockne’s expecting one, her and Miss Fragile haven’t mentioned it. You don’t know why it’s there, do you?”

“Can’t say I do. It is a bit peculiar, but women do some strange things. Maybe she was plannin’ to have a family someday and just got the room outfitted ahead of time.”

“What are you two discussing so secretively over here?” Fragile cut in, approaching with drinks in her hands, which she extended to the two gentlemen.

“I was just askin’ the boss why Miss Lockne has that nursery upstairs,” Flaherty answered, before Higgs could stop him.

Fragile’s face went a few shades whiter and she glanced at Higgs, then back at Flaherty. “How do you know about that?”

“I didn’t mean to snoop, ma’am,” Flaherty said apologetically. “She sent me up there the other day to get some spare linens and the door was open.”

“I see. I don’t think that is anyone’s business but her own,” Fragile said stiffly. “Why don’t we talk about something else?”

She tried to look nonchalant, but Higgs’ gaze was already fixed keenly on her face, as if attempting to bore a hole through her skull.

He handed his full glass to Flaherty, without taking his eyes off her. “Johnny, go and freshen that up, will you?”

Flaherty knew his business and retreated swiftly to the kitchen, where Sam jerked his chin in greeting and held out the bowl of pistachios to him. He took a handful and sipped on one of the beverages, studiously ignoring the scene in the living room. He couldn’t hear a word of what the boss and Miss Fragile were saying, anyway, but they seemed to want privacy, and even looking felt impolite.

“Look at me, Fragile,” Higgs said, in that softly imperious tone. “What are you hidin’ from me?”

Fragile shook her head and wouldn’t meet his eye. She moved to walk away, but he caught her wrist and drew her close, breathing deeply as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I can smell it. Something…painful.” He drew back and looked down into her face. “It’s got something to do with me. Fragile, tell me. Please.”

Fragile looked up at him, her jaw tense and her lower lip trembling. “Your first South Knot bomb blew up a hospital where Målingen was a patient at the time, due to have a cesarean section. Higgs, you…you killed their baby.”

Higgs released Fragile and backed away unsteadily, as the ground tilted under his feet, and his stomach wound itself into a tight, cold knot. Gripping the back of the sofa for support, he turned his head sluggishly till his eyes found Sam.

Sam took a step toward him, but Higgs held up a hand. “Why didn’t…why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, in a grave, gentle tone that raked his lacerated nerves. “They didn’t want you to know.”

“Alright, then,” he said hoarsely. “I just—I need to think.”

“Higgs, please don’t—” Sam began, but he was already gone, with a shuddering roar and red flare, and shower of black sparks.


	23. Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***WARNING: This chapter contains frank depictions of child abuse, which some readers may find disturbing. Read with caution.***

_How wonderful is Death_  
_Death, and his brother Sleep_  
_One, pale as yonder waning moon_  
_With lips of lurid blue_  
_The other, rosy as the morn_  
_When throned on ocean’s wave_  
_It blushes o’er the world_  
_Yet both so passing wonderful_

Percy Bysse Shelley, _Queen Mab_

Somewhere in the dust-scoured desert hills, far outside the ruins of what had been a nothing of a town even before it degenerated into a graveyard of rusted steel beams and timefall-eaten masonry, was a solitary prepper shelter. Like most shelters of its kind, the exposed portion consisted of a low, grey, oblong entryway, only distinguishable from the scrubby brush and surrounding boulders by the blue lights of its scanner ring.

The underground portion of the shelter, which constitutes the majority of such dwellings, contained a galley kitchen and a few small, dingy rooms. They were furnished sparely and with little in the way of taste, and cluttered with cardboard boxes containing knickknacks and collectible memorabilia of no real value, crates filled with liquor bottles, and cargo containers of varying shapes and sizes.

In one of these rooms was an ersatz shelf of sorts—fashioned from stacks of overturned crates with boards laid across them—packed to bursting with aged, water-stained books. The bed, which was really just an old army cot with some wool blankets on it, was strewn with more books, and many more lay in haphazard piles all about the room.

It was dark in this room, but for the dim light from the hallway, which cast a yellowish glow over the cot, illuminating the face of a young boy. He was perhaps twelve years old, pale and rather thin, with dark brown hair and oddly large blue eyes, below one of which was the shadow of a purple, crescent-shaped bruise. He held a book open in his hands, but his attention was fixed intently on the doorway, in an attitude of tense watchfulness.

Gradually, a wheezing snore, emanating from another room in the shelter, filtered up through the dull background hum of the generator and climate control system. This was apparently what the boy had been waiting for. He slipped out from beneath his blanket and crept to the doorway, where he paused, listening breathlessly. The snoring continued, interrupted at sporadic intervals by a snort and a gasp, a silent beat, then a return to its droning cadence.

Reassured by this, he returned to cot and crouched beside it, reaching underneath to move a box of books, from behind which he drew a couple of small, silver cargo containers. The first contained all-weather boots and a rubberized timefall poncho, which he set on the cot. From the second, he produced a drab-green jumpsuit, a belt light, rope, cargo clamps, and various other accoutrements he’d managed to pilfer or scavenge during his surreptitious night-time expeditions.

He still needed a VOG mask and a proper filtration canteen before he’d be ready for his final departure, but with any luck, he’d be set up to get those tonight. He’d met a porter who said he’d trade gear for any lost Bridges-labeled cargo the boy happened to find—depending on the condition, of course—and the boy knew just where to find a whole mess of it. The tricky part would be getting the stuff out undetected.

MULEs only scanned for cargo tags, and years of tiptoeing around the old drunk had made him as wary and stealthy as a hunting cat, so getting into the camp would be no problem. Hacking a MULE post box was a joke, too, but that was where everything could go south in a hurry. The things took a minute or two to unlock and they made a loud thunking sound when they opened up, which would alert any nearby MULE that something was up.

He’d just have to move faster than them, was all. He knew he was quick and agile enough so he could get away up the plateau with a couple of smaller containers. He’d learned that the hard way last spring, when he’d been forced to try his skill at climbing in the dark and rain, with MULEs nipping at his heels and tossing those shock spears at him.

Lucky for him, they were about as good at aiming as they were at articulating complex ideas, or he’d have wound up at the bottom of the cliff with a couple of broken limbs or worse. That was the night he’d found that shelter, where the nice old man took him in and gave him food, and let him wait out the storm in his cozy little living room. By some miracle, daddy was still asleep when he came sneaking back in at dawn, or he’d have been better off taking his chances with the MULEs.

He listened at the door again, then got hastily into his gear and boots. With what he’d managed to hoard away so far, the few things he could reasonably expect to get away with tonight should be enough. Not a moment too soon, either. He wanted to get this over and done with and finally be free. All his careful planning, creeping out at night to scavenge and finding places to hide things in the shelter were about to pay off. Then he’d never have to see this place or that stupid, drunk ape ever again.

After one last check of his kit, he slipped silently down the hall to the main living area. He switched on the monitor, circumvented daddy’s clumsy attempt at password control with a simple override command he’d installed on the system months ago, and disabled the perimeter scanners so he could get out undetected. This done, he turned around and gave a yelp of surprise, his heart leaping into his throat. The man himself was standing there in his sweat-stained a-shirt and underwear

“The fuck are y—you doin’,” he slurred, looking the boy up and down with his puffy, pink-rimmed eyes.

The reek of stale whiskey poured forth on his breath and hung in the air around them. The boy drew himself up, standing as tall as he could, but made no answer.

“S’all this?” the man demanded, taking hold of the collar of his timefall poncho and giving him a rough shake. “Where the fuck you get this gear, boy?”

The boy stared back at him, mouth defiantly shut, clenching his fists at his sides.

“Answer me!” the man growled, and this time the command was accompanied by a backhanded blow across his face. “The fuck you doin’ with all this shit?”

The boy’s cheek burned with the slap. Not his cheek only, but every bruise and scar on his body, as if the heat had seeped in and run through his veins, kindling all his wounds with the same fire of righteous fury. Had the man been more perceptive, or perhaps more sober, he may have observed a hint of something wild and dangerous sparking to life in those unnaturally large, almond-shaped blue eyes. Unfortunately for him, he did not.

“I’m leavin’,” the boy said boldly. “That’s what I’m doin’, I’m fuckin’ leavin’.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” the man scoffed. “What you gonna do? Go and whore like your mama?”

“Fuck you,” the boy snarled, attempting to shake the man off.

The man let go of the cloak and shoved him hard, sending him sprawling onto his back, and before he had time to recover, had a foot planted firmly on his sternum.

“Pretty sissy-boy like you’s gonna be real popular with them kiddie pervs in the city,” he sneered, leaning heavily on his heel. “That what you want, boy? You wanna earn your keep suckin’ dick?”

“I can’t breathe,” the boy rasped, beating at the man’s shin with both hands. “Get the fuck off me!”

The man gave a snort of harsh laughter, but he lifted his foot and lurched back a step. “I never shoulda took you in. You’re just as stubborn and stupid as your mama. And you’re gonna wind up just as dead.”

“I don’t care what you say,” the boy retorted sullenly, as he as struggled to his feet. “I’d rather be dead out there than alive in here. I’m sick of livin’ underground like a rat in this rotten shithole. I hate this place and I hate you.”

“Aw, you hate me, boo-hoo,” the man mocked. Then his dull, jeering expression twisted into something far more savage. His face flushing red with rage, he fumbled drunkenly for a weapon. “You fuckin’ hate me, you ungrateful little piece of shit! I’ll give you somethin’ to hate! I’ll break every bone in your worthless body!”

The first thing that came to hand was an empty bottle, which he pitched at the boy’s head. It exploded on the wall, sending fragments of glass scattering about them like hailstones. The boy stumbled backward toward the door, keeping his hands up to ward off the barrage of shoes and various household items being hurled at him.

Finding no more missiles ready to hand, the man roared and charged him like a mad bull. The boy grabbed a chair and thrust it between them, but the man smashed through it. Half blind in his intoxicated madness, he slipped on the fragments of the chair and lost his balance. Bellowing and cursing, he clutched at a bookcase for support, which went toppling over, ejecting its contents as it fell. The boy narrowly escaped being trapped beneath it by clambering over the sofa to dash into the kitchen, but the man was right on his heels.

He caught hold of the timefall poncho and dragged the boy back, pulling everything on the counter onto the floor with him, in a tremendous, clattering crash. The man dropped onto him and pinned his chest beneath his knees, then threw back his arm and struck him with a heavy fist, again and again, until the boy gave a choking gasp and spit blood. This seemed to give the man pause. His fist stopped mid-swing and his rough, ugly face contorted with grief.

“You don’t know shit, you goddamn—you stupid goddamn kid,” he croaked, through guttural sobs that spattered the boy’s face with spit and tears. “I lost everyone! Everything! You don’t know what it’s like. All you think about’s yourself. You don’t give a shit about what I been through—my fuckin’ pain.”

Tears pouring down his face, he put his big, meaty hands around the boy’s neck and began to squeeze. The boy’s heart pounded wildly and he could hear his blood rushing in his ears. His daddy had beat him within an inch of his life a hundred times, but this was different. He knew, by some primal, animal instinct, that he must fight now, or die.

Every fiber of his being revolted against the idea of his own death. He fought back with all his strength, writhing and kicking and clawing to no avail, grasping desperately among the scattered kitchenware for something—anything to use as a weapon. His lungs burned and screamed for air and spots crept across his vision. Just as everything began to go black, his fingers closed on a smooth, rounded handle.

The man was still sputtering incoherent pleas, weeping and moaning, seeming to beg the boy’s forgiveness even as he strangled the life out of him. Then suddenly, his blubbering stopped short, and his swollen eyes went wide. A wet, gurgling sound came from his throat as he blinked down at the boy open-mouthed disbelief. The boy twisted the knife.

A gout of crimson blood gushed from the deep puncture, splashing over his chest and soaking into his drab-green jumpsuit, but he kept his gaze fixed on the man’s eyes until they went hazy and unfocused. Then the calloused hands around his neck slackened and the dead weight of the man’s body crumpled down on top of him, like a balloon deflating.

For a long while, the boy lay there dazed, shaking from head to foot and gulping in shallow, ragged breaths. When his racing heartbeat began to calm and his head stopped spinning, the shards of crockery digging into his back began to hurt. He was also lying in a pool of blood that was rapidly growing colder, and becoming sticky as it coagulated.

Straining his taxed muscles to another effort, he managed to heave the man off him, then drag himself up to peer into his face. For some bizarre reason, the first thing he noticed was that there were droplets of saliva still clinging to the scruffy hair on the man’s chin. He observed mechanically that the skin had taken on a grey cast. The wide-open eyes were glassy and vacant, staring sightless into oblivion. The man was dead.

How strange. A few minutes ago, this had been his daddy. Now it was a husk. A bag of flesh and bone, devoid of the vital spark. He felt…nothing. Mild revulsion at the acrid odor of blood mingled with stale whiskey and sweat, perhaps, but no emotion to speak of. His mind was blank and clear, like a drift of fresh-fallen snow.

In this state of calm, he became keenly aware of his breath and the heart beating in his chest—of his own body, still very much alive, though battered and torn in the desperate fight to retain that life. The adrenaline high had dropped off sharply, and now he found himself exhausted right down to his rattled bones. Unable to muster the strength to move another inch, he collapsed beside the dead thing that had called itself his daddy for all these years, and slipped away into the black oblivion of sleep. Into this deathlike slumber, a dream crept quietly, to unwind its whispered tale in the darkness behind his closed eyes.

A dream of death.

A great ocean covered the earth, black as tar and stretching out from horizon to horizon. Somewhere in this immeasurable expanse, far beyond the reach of mortal eyes, stood a mighty fortress, made all of purest, shining gold. Looming above its formidable walls and proud battlements, a solitary spire pierced the grey sky like a glittering, golden needle, and it foundations lay in the deeps of the fathomless sea.

High in this lofty tower was a great hall, pillared and vaulted and fashioned from smooth, black stone, crackled through with veins of gold, like lighting in the night sky. Though beautiful, the vast and gilded hall was austere and inhospitable, more like to a temple or a mausoleum than to any human habitation, empty of any adornment or trapping of comfort, save for a high dais at the center, upon which stood a golden throne.

Cloaked in black and golden masked, the herald of death sat in judgement upon the throne. In his right hand he held the crook, and in his left, the flail. On guard before the dais, two massive lions stalked, ink-black and wearing a masks of gold, and above the throne, six figures hung suspended, like black stars, silent and eternal.

Into this hallowed place, where none had ever dared enter unbidden, a little thing drifted—small and white and delicate, the petal of a lily, or the feather of some long-forgotten species of bird—as if carried on a breeze from the sea. The lions watched it warily as it twirled and fluttered in the air, and lighted at last at the feet of their master.

The herald of death rose in challenge and the black sea rose with him, heaving up towering swells that would have swallowed the fleets of nations. With the rising of the sea, the great beasts of the deep burst forth, shrieking and wailing in their wrath, thrashing impotently at the golden walls with thousands of oil-black tentacles.

Undisturbed by this deadly portent, the petal danced and whirled upon the dais, throwing off little glimmers of warm light, as if reflecting the rays of a sun that did not rise in this dead sky. All at once its aspect shifted, and it took the shape of a human infant, soft and warm and pink-skinned, gazing up at the herald with large, green eyes. The lions leapt to his side and stood at bay, but he raised a hand to stay them.

For a time—whether a moment or a century, none could tell—the cavernous hall lay wrapped in waiting stillness, and no sound was heard but the roaring of the waves. Then, stooping down over the infant, the herald took it up and pressed it to his heart. As he did so, the golden mask shattered and fell in fragments to the floor. His black garments, too, seemed to burn away and disperse, like paper held over a flame. At last, he stood naked and unmasked. Not a god, but a living man.

Above him, the six black figures flickered and vanished. The lions, seeming to be severed from the will that held them to their shape, liquefied and melted away into the black stone. At the same moment, the floor bucked and tilted beneath the herald’s feet, as the fortress was shaken to its foundations. The vaults and pillars cracked and the high walls began to crumble, and with a noise like the rolling of thunder, or the footsteps of a titan, the golden tower fell. The great fortress foundered and was swallowed into the depths of the sea, leaving nothing behind to tell of its passing.

Still cradling the infant in his arms, the herald stood on the surface of the black water, gazing out over the empty horizon. Unconsciously, be began to hum a snippet of some half-remembered tune, at which the infant cooed and warbled, as if attempting to sing along.

He looked down into her face and smiled. “I guess you’ve got DOOMs. Congratulations.”

“Bah! Bah!” she said, reaching for him with her tiny hands.

He let her catch hold of one of his fingers, which she immediately attempted to get into her mouth. Drawing it away again, he poked the tip of her nose, then laughed at the little squeak of a sneeze this produced.

“Your daddy’s gonna be mad as a wet cat, young lady,” he chided, as she wiggled and kicked her legs triumphantly. “Little girls shouldn’t be usin’ the Beach before they’re big enough to walk.”

“Baba,” she informed him.

“I know that, Louise, but you’re still just a baby. No more usin’ the Beach without a responsible adult, understood?”

She widened her big, green eyes and blinked innocently. “Muuuuu?”

“Cause it ain’t right to fuck off all the sudden and make people worry about—oh, I see what you’re doin’. Well, grown-ups ain’t perfect either. Especially not me. But your daddy…he’s a good man. He reminds me who I wanted to be, before all this. I guess now I get to find out if I’m man enough to face what I done and keep on tryin’.”

“Bubbffft.”

“I wasn’t hidin’, I needed to think. This is the only place I can shut out the dead so I don’t have to listen to their wailin’ and carryin’ on for a goddamn minute. You know how it is.”

“Weh,” she replied, scrunching up her little face.

“Bein’ here is like…goin’ to sleep.” He sighed and gazed away into the distance, his brow furrowed with some deep trouble. “I keep thinkin’ about how I’m gonna look those sweet girls in the face, after—” he began again, then stopped short and shook his head. “But I’m not runnin’ away anymore. It’s gonna hurt like hell and that’s what I deserve. It’s nothing compared to what I took from them.”

She burbled sympathetically and continued drooling all over her fists, upon which she was gnawing with her pink gums. He seemed about to say something else, but his mouth twisted in a sudden grimace. He gave a low groan and curled forward, clutching her protectively against his chest.

“Naw, it’s al—it’s alright,” he panted, as she began to whimper. “It’s just your daddy pullin’ on me.”

“Awaaaa,” she said mournfully. “Wa-baba.”

“He don’t mean to, darlin’. That’s just the way it is with us. Hurts bad when we’re too far apart.” The spasm subsided and he straightened himself up, pressing a reassuring kiss to her forehead. “I better get you back before those idiots panic and do somethin’ rash. You ready?”

“Oooomooo,” she remarked.

“No, I suppose I can’t show up in nothin’ but my skin,” he said, with a devilish wink. “Wouldn’t want to create a sensation.”

He held her out from his body as his usual armor and gear materialized, except for the hood and masks, for which he had no need in private company, and the red BB pod, which he hadn’t carried since the day he’d lost the fight to Sam on Amelie’s beach. Then he drew her close and tucked her little head securely under his chin.

“Ok, sweetheart, hang on tight. We’re goin’ home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	24. Spatial Awareness

“I think this is more than you actually weigh, Lou,” Lockne said with a grimace. “How did you even have that much pee in your body?”

“Waweeeeee!” Lou proclaimed, kicking her bare legs joyously.

“Ok, calm down, spaz,” Lockne laughed. “You’re gonna roll off the table.”

She dropped the offending diaper into the waste compactor, retrieved a fresh one, and set about getting it securely fastened on the wiggling infant. This task accomplished with reasonable success, she opened a drawer in the changing table and looked over the multicolored array of tiny cotton bodysuits, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully.

“You’re a bit smaller than a usual newborn, but I think these will fit ok,” she said, as she drew one out. “They’ll just be a little loose.”

“Ew, pink?” Målingen scoffed. “What are you, nuts?”

“What’s wrong with pink?” Lockne pouted.

“Nothing. If you want her to look like a _girl_.”

“She is a girl, idiot. I think it’s cute.”

“You’re the idiot, idiot. Pink is gross. What about that grey one?”

“Grey? So, it’s ok for her to look like a BT, but not a girl.”

“Well…maybe you have a point. Compromise with the heather blue?”

“Deal.”

They were in the process of carefully pulling the garment over the baby’s head, when she let out a distressed wail and began to thrash her little limbs.

“Oh no, what’s wrong, sweetie?” Lockne cooed. “Did I snag your ear or something?”

“Maybe she doesn’t like the blue,” Målingen offered.

At that moment, a clattering sound like crockery breaking rang out downstairs. They gave a start and turned their head to glance in that direction, then turned back to the changing table.

“Oh no, Lou!” Lockne exclaimed, looking frantically about the nursery. Lou, however, was nowhere to be found. She had simply vanished, leaving the empty diaper and baby garment in her place on the changing pad. “Shit, shit shit, she’s gone. How did she do that? Can she use the Beach?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t think babies that age were even capable of the complex cognitive process it takes to properly visualize the Beach, let alone accomplish the actual travel.”

As Målingen said this, they hurried toward the door, intending to alert Sam to the situation. Just as they reached the threshold, they stopped short with a yelp of surprise, almost running headfirst into Higgs, who suddenly materialized in their path, with the usual roar and shimmer of red flame.

“Higgs!” Lockne gasped. “You scared the shit out of us. Lou disappeared and—oh my god, Lou! You’ve got her!”

“Yeah, I got the little vagabond,” Higgs answered placidly, in his indolent drawl. “I guess she popped out on you.”

They nodded. “How’d you know? And how’d you find her so fast?”

“I didn’t have to. She came right to me. Just washed up on my beach, like a pink sea-cucumber.” He looked down to address the guilty party, who was chomping lustily on the thumb of his black and gold glove. “You better apologize to your aunties, young lady. You gave ‘em quite a scare.”

“Uuum-mwam,” Lou mumbled around her mouthful of glove, sounding anything but apologetic.

“I guess she can use the Beach, then,” Lockne said, with a shaky laugh. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“She can, but she ain’t allowed to. Not without a responsible adult,” Higgs said, attempting to tug his thumb free and eliciting a burble of protest. “I better take her to her daddy. He must be a basket case about now.”

“Probably not,” Lockne said. “No one knows she was gone but us.”

“How’s that?” Higgs asked, with a frown.

“I mean, she popped out and we were running to get Sam, and then you popped right back in with her. It was less than thirty seconds.”

“Huh. Well ain’t that something. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but that asynchronous time thing always manages to get me discombobulated.”

“Either way, we should put some clothes on her before we take her back down,” Lockne said, holding out her arms for the infant. She laid her on the padded changing table, then cast a sidelong glance at Higgs. “So…what were you doing there, anyway? You and Sam were supposed to be staying for dinner and to talk about the chiral network thing.”

Higgs’ brow clouded and he turned away, wrestling down a reflexive urge to summon his masks. As he did so, his eyes traveled about the low-lit room, resting briefly on the crib in the corner and the mobile hanging above it, with its array of silvery sea creatures. A nightlight low on one wall, with a pattern of moons and stars punched through the ivory plastic cover. A rocking chair with a plush, lilac-colored blanket draped over its high back. The table upon which Lou was cooing and giggling as she was dressed, and the very clothes the sisters were putting on her…all of these things were selected and arranged here with tender care, in loving anticipation of another baby. A baby he killed.

“I know,” he began hoarsely, then cleared his throat to steady his voice. “I know about your baby. I know what I did to you.”

Their slender shoulders tensed perceptibly, but they continued getting Lou into her fresh diaper. “How did you find out?”

“Johnny was askin’ about the nursery. I made Fragile tell me.”

“Oh. You’re upset, aren’t you.”

“I reckon upset is a word for it.” He paused, but since they didn’t make any reply, he forced himself to press on. “I don’t understand why you been so kind to me. How can you…how can you even stand to look me in the face, knowin’ what I done?”

They turned and looked up at him with those huge, luminous, bi-colored eyes. “We forgave you a long time ago. We didn’t want you to know, because we knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“You forgave me,” Higgs repeated slowly, as if he could better parse the words by pronouncing them aloud. “I killed your baby. I killed her and I hurt you, and you were nothing to me. One among the thousands I made suffer the same way. And you just…forgave me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re right,” he said, with a hysterical edge creeping into his voice. “I don’t. I do not fuckin’ understand.”

“It’s ok,” they said gently. “It’s a lot harder to understand these things when you’re alive.”

“What? What does that matter?”

“You understand death conceptually, but you’ve never actually been dead,” Lockne explained. “We experience things differently, because one of us is.”

“My awareness, my reason, my emotions…they’re all unbound from the physical world,” Målingen continued. “I can see the infinity of time. The past and the future, stretching out endlessly and moving in harmony, with no beginning and no end. With this kind of perspective, it’s pretty much impossible to hang onto anger or bitterness.”

“Our daughter is dead, but she isn’t gone,” Lockne added. “She is a part of us and she is forever. Whether you want to accept it or not, we have forgiven you.”

“You can’t—I can’t let you forgive me,” he said, wringing his gloved hands together. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

They laid a slender hand on his to arrest his agitated movements. “We think you do.”

“When I found out what I’d done to you, I had to leave this plane of existence to stop myself coming apart. You should hate me. It’d be so much easier if you’d just…hate me.”

“But we don’t,” they said. “We love you.”

“Bah bah!” Lou exclaimed gleefully. “Aboooo!”

“Lou loves you, too,” they laughed, bouncing the tiny interloper in their arms.

Higgs shook his head. “I don’t even deserve your forgiveness, I sure as shit don’t deserve your love.”

“Well, deal with it, because you have it. We’ve got a very strict no-return policy.”

He gazed into their lovely face, with that soft, nearly radiant smile, and a tear rolled down his cheek. He turned his head and brushed it away hastily.

“Why are you always lookin’ at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I just came home from a war.”

“Sorry, we can’t help it. Your connection to the dead is very strong. To us, you look like…home.”

“I guess I’m different on the other side,” he said, feeling oddly abashed by their ability to perceive that part of himself. “It didn’t occur to me that’s what you were lookin’ at.”

“We’re looking at you from both sides. I don’t think even Sam gets to see all of you at once, like we do.”

“No. I don’t involve him in that.”

“Why not?”

“He don’t need to see me that way, without the human-suit on. I’m bad enough here, but there…I’m all monster.”

“Higgs, how many people have you guided across since we talked about you and Sam and your roles in the life-death balance?”

“I don’t know,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “Hundreds.”

“And how many of them were horrified by you? How many looked at you like you were a monster?”

His throat constricted with sudden emotion, and he had to swallow hard before he could speak. “None. None of them.”

“Exactly. You have done monstrous things, but you—no, listen to us. We’re not excusing you, we’re trying to make you understand something important. Neither side of what you are is a monster. On the other side, you’re the shepherd, because that’s what they need you to be. On this side, you’re a man. You are flawed and broken and beautiful, just like every other human being. And you’re going to have to learn to forgive yourself.”

“You’re part of our family now, Higgs,” Lockne said, in a gentler tone. “And…we will love your daughter just as much as we loved ours.”

Higgs blinked in astonishment. “How can you know—oh, Fragile must’ve mentioned those visions, or whatever they were.”

“Nope,” Målingen chirped. “I just told you, I know a lot about the future. Not everything, but like…a lot.”

“Then you saw the girl, too. Fragile didn’t say anything?”

“Nah, she’s in super deep denial about it. Give her a little time, though. She’ll come around. She’s got a biological clock like Big Ben.”

“Gross,” Lockne chimed in. “And sexist.”

“How can it be sexist?” Målingen said indignantly. “I’m a woman!”

“Incorrect,” her sister informed her. “You’re a super annoying ghost who used to be a woman, and is now apparently a huge sexist.”

“Oh my god why do I even haunt you. You are literally the worst.”

“No one’s making you stay, bitch.”

“You’re the bitch!”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“Uh, a bitch?”

“Takes one to know one.”

“I’ll take you—”

“Ladies, please,” Higgs cut in. “I hate to interrupt this important debate, but what’s Fragile havin’ my baby got to do with me bein’ part of your family?”

“You’re part of it because she is,” Lockne answered brightly.

“Yep,” Målingen agreed. “It’s like marrying into a family, except none of us are related and you’re not marrying her.”

“We all come from broken families, so we have to make our own.”

“The cool thing about that is you get to choose who your people are. Congratulations, you’re one of ours.”

Higgs opened his mouth and closed it awkwardly, more than a bit bowled over by their rapid-fire conversation style, and not certain what to say. Fortunately, Lou came to his rescue by beginning to fuss just then, twisting around and stretching her arms out to him.

“You’re mostly Lou’s, though,” Lockne said, as she returned the freshly clothed baby to her bewildered parent. “Don’t worry, she won’t let you forget it.”

“By the way, we’ve adopted Johnny, too,” Målingen announced, as he followed them out of the nursery. “We absolutely adore him.”

“He is pretty adorable. Don’t you go tellin’ him that and gettin’ his head all swelled up, though. He’ll be impossible to live with.”

“I can’t imagine Johnny getting full of himself. He’s so sweet.”

“Oh, yeah?” Higgs said, arching an eyebrow. “You ain’t gettin’ sweet _on_ him, are you?”

They made a face. “He’s like twelve years old, Higgs, gross.”

“I think he said he was twenty-two.”

“Which, for a man, is basically still a child.”

“I dunno,” Higgs shrugged. “Pretty big, sexy child, if you ask me.”

“Well, yes. But we’re not into him like that. There’s…” they trailed off and looked away.

“There’s what? Ooh-hoo, I see. There’s someone else you’re sweet on. Spill it. Who’s the luckiest guy on the planet?”

“No, we don’t—there’s no lucky guy,” they said, blushing to the ears. “Forget about it.”

“Aw, darlin’, you don’t really think you can keep it from me, do you?” He cocked his head to the side and leaned close, then his eyes went wide and he stood back a pace. “Holy shit, it’s—”

“Shh shh! Shut up!” they hissed, with sudden energy, pushing him bodily against the wall and holding their forefinger to his lips. “We don’t want anyone to know! Promise you won’t say anything!”

“Alright, alright, calm down. Of course I won’t tell. What is this, high school?”

They blinked perplexedly. “High school?”

“Wait, was high school still a thing when you were growing up?”

“Wow, how old are you, grandpa?”

“Y’goddamn kids these days,” Higgs grumbled. “This must be how Sam feels.”

“Maaaam,” Lou interjected.

“Did she just say ma’am?” Lockne asked.

“I think she said Sam,” Målingen suggested.

“Maaam,” Lou repeated. “Maaaaaaam.”

“No callin’ your daddy by his Christian name, Louise,” Higgs chided. “You get to callin’ me papa and callin’ him Sam, you’re gonna break his old heart.”

“Maaam?” she asked sweetly.

“Alright, you little stink-bug, we’ll go see daddy now. But you mind your manners, you got that?”

“Bah bah.”

“Good girl.”

“Higgs, that’s really cute, but there’s no way she understands what you’re saying,” Lockne said. “She’s not capable of that kind of abstract reasoning yet.”

“I don’t think we should underestimate her,” Målingen put in. “She did take herself to the Beach to find him.”

“Yes, she did,” Higgs said, kissing the top of her peach-fuzzed head. “And she guilted me about bein’ an asshole once she was there.”

“She can’t have intentionally guilted you, Higgs,” Lockne laughed. “She’s just a baby.”

“She’s sure got you fooled,” Higgs replied tranquilly, as they descended the staircase into the living area. “Samuel, we have brought your infant, sanitized and properly clothed. You’re welcome.”

“Thanks, guys,” Sam’s voice said from the sofa. “Look at you, Lou. You’re all dressed up.”

Higgs’ expression changed as he heard the weariness in his tone, and observed the waxy cast of his skin. “What’s wrong with you? You look sick, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Sam said, pushing away the damp cloth with which Flaherty was attempting to dab his forehead. “I had a little thing and Fragile flipped out. She went to get Heartman, but it’s nothing.”

“What d’you mean, a little thing? Johnny, what’s goin’ on?”

“Mr. Bridges got sick, boss,” Flaherty answered, despite Sam’s attempt at a warning look. “We were standing in the kitchen eating pistachios, and all the sudden he turned all pale and grabbed his chest, like he was having a heart attack or something. He fell, and I caught him and carried him over here. The bowl that had the pistachios in it didn’t survive. Sorry, Ms. Lockne.”

“Don’t worry about it, Johnny,” Lockne said. “Sam, how are you? Are you in pain?”

“I said I’m fine,” Sam insisted. “I’m only laying here because Higgs’ thug won’t let me get up.”

“You don’t look fine,” Higgs said, as he knelt at his side and peered into his face. “You look like death. What the fuck happened?”

Sam shook his head, refusing to meet his eye.

“Maaaaaam,” Lou squealed.

“Did she just say ma’am?” Sam asked, craning his neck to look at her over the back of the sofa.

“Higgs thinks she’s saying Sam,” Lockne said. “I’m pretty sure she’s just making baby noises.”

“I’d like to agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,” Higgs said smoothly. “Sam, please explain Louise’s conversational gifts to our hostess.”

“Higgs and Lou talk all the time,” Sam told Lockne. “I can’t understand shit she says, either, though. Just sounds like baby noises to me, too.”

“Maaam!” Lou demanded, as if to refute his assertion. “Maaaaaaaam!”

Sam moved to get up, but Flaherty stepped in front of the sofa and held up a hand.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that, sir,” he said firmly. “Ms. Fragile told me not to let you move from this spot till she says it’s ok.”

“Fragile’s not in charge of me,” Sam retorted. “And neither are you. Didn’t I knock your ass out at a Demens camp a while back?”

“Yes, sir, you did.” Flaherty crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. “You want to try me again?”

Sam hesitated, looking him up and down. “Nah, I’m good. I like my bones and teeth where they are. God damn. There’s no way you were this big back then.”

“I had a growth spurt, sir,” Flaherty replied, in the same serious tone, at which Higgs had to stifle a laugh.

“What could be taking Fragile so long?” Lockne wondered aloud. “I’d understand if Heartman was away on Beach recon when she showed up, but he stopped doing that.”

“Beach recon?” Higgs asked.

“It’s…a long story. Sam, you’re actually looking better than you did a second ago. That’s a relief.”

“I keep telling everyone it was nothing,” Sam said impatiently. “At least Heartman’s time won’t be totally wasted. He’ll just here in person for our conversation, instead of by hologram.”

At that moment, the awaited pair arrived under Fragile’s spinning umbrella. Heartman greeted the party in a perfunctory manner as he hurried over to Sam with his black doctor’s bag. Higgs and Flaherty moved out of his way, and found themselves standing together by the fireplace again.

“Hey, boss,” Flaherty whispered. “This is gonna sound nuts, but I think Mr. Bridges might be right. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him.”

“What makes you say that, Johnny?” Higgs asked distractedly, keeping his eyes on the tall man in the blue suit, who was using some kind of medical device to scan Sam’s torso.

“Well, he looked like just like you did when he was gone all that time. And he got better as soon as you came back. It almost seems like you two need to be, like…together, or you get sick. It sounds pretty dumb when I say it out loud, though.”

Higgs turned and eyed him suspiciously. “Johnny, I’m startin’ to wonder if your stupidity isn’t all an act.”

Flaherty looked wounded. “Why would I pretend to be stupider than I already am, boss?”

“Who’s to say. But I better not find out you’re some kinda secret genius or somethin’. I’m the brains of the operation and that’s how I like it.”

“A secret genius? Boss, if I was a genius, I’d want to tell everyone about it. It’d be so exciting to be able to do the kind of stuff you do.”

“Would it, now. What kind of stuff?”

“Like, how you figured out how to modify guns to fire chiral ammo, and how you make those fancy plans that explain all the things everyone should do and how everything’s gonna go, and then when we do it, it works out just like you said. That stuff.”

“Ah, that. I think you’d be better off using your brain to help people, instead of hurting ‘em. That’s what I should’ve been doing.”

Flaherty regarded him cautiously. “Why didn’t you?”

“I meant to,” Higgs sighed. “Everything got all twisted in my head. I thought I was helping people by putting them out of their misery. Turns out killing them was just making them suffer a whole new way.”

“Was it because of that red-dress lady? The one who did that stuff to Lucy?”

“Partly. But she wouldn’t have been able to make me do anything if I wasn’t already the way I am. Which is to say, pretty fairly fucked up. I don’t even trust myself to know right from wrong, anymore.”

“But, boss, that can’t be true. Everyone knows right from wrong. Even me.”

“Maybe you do, but no one ever taught me those things. Come to think of it, maybe you could help me.”

“Help you how, boss?”

“Help me tell right from wrong. Like, when I’m in a moral quandary about somethin’. Or when I’m not, but you see me about to do some wrong shit anyhow. You could make me stop and think about it first.”

“Come on, boss,” Flaherty said, with an uneasy laugh. “You can’t be serious. Are…are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. That’s your new job, Johnny. You’re gonna be my moral advisor. Like a conscience, only you’ll hang around with me instead of bein’ inside my head.”

Flaherty’s lips parted and his big brown eyes got bigger. “Your conscience? Like Jiminy Cricket?”

Higgs squinted at him. “Whominy whatbit? Speak English, son.”

“From Pinocchio, boss,” Flaherty elucidated, to no observable effect on his listener. “It’s a movie about a wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy, so a fairy comes and gives him a talking cricket to be his conscience. And there’s all these donkey boys who teach him to drink and smoke, and they get eaten by a whale, but he gets to be a real boy in the end.”

“Huh. Well, I’m not a hundred percent confident on that bein’ a real movie and not just some shit you dreamed, but alright. You can be my Cribbity…Jibbet.”

“It’s…thank you, boss,” Flaherty said, deciding mid-sentence that the correction wasn’t worth risking. “I’ll do my best, I promise.”

Higgs turned his attention back to the doctor, who had stood and was removing the earpieces of an actual antique stethoscope from his ears.

“I can’t find a thing wrong with you, Sam,” he was saying. “Whatever it was, it seems to have passed. Just take care you’re getting enough to eat and hydrating regularly, and let me know if it happens again.”

“It won’t, because it was nothing,” Sam insisted, pushing himself up from the sofa. “I’m being fussed over by a bunch of hens.”

“I thought you were dying, Sam,” Fragile said, with a touch of crossness. “Johnny and I were both very worried. Weren’t we, Johnny.”

Flaherty nodded. “We were, ma’am. Mr. Bridges did look like he was dying, boss. Ms. Fragile did the right thing.”

“That’s the last Mr. Bridges I’m gonna take from you,” the increasingly annoyed Mr. Bridges said to him. “My name is Sam.”

“I’m sorry, sir. The boss says it’s always better to err on the side of courtesy.”

“Don’t call me sir, either,” Sam shot back. “It makes me feel a hundred years old.”

“Samuel, there’s no reason to be uncivil to Johnny,” Higgs interjected, laying a protective hand on his young companion’s shoulder. “I know you’re out of sorts, but he was only tryin’ to help.”

“I didn’t need any fucking help,” Sam muttered, stalking away into the kitchen.

There was a tense moment or two of silence, while Sam was swallowing a glass of water, in which no one was sure what to say. Heartman was the first to break it, seeming to lighten the atmosphere by pure virtue of his genial, soothing manner.

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” he said, holding out a hand to Higgs. “Heartman. I worked with Sam and the others during the…incident.”

Higgs took his hand and shook it. “Higgs. But I’m sure you knew that already.”

“I had an inkling, yes. There are not many men who would display the black and gold inside a UCA city.”

“Well, there aren’t many men like me. But I’m sure you knew that, too,” Higgs said, with a shrewd smile. “This here’s Johnny. If you gentlemen will excuse me for a moment, I have a matter to discuss with my better half.”

Heartman dipped his chin. “Of course. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Johnny. You must be with Bridges, as well.”

“No, sir,” Flaherty answered solemnly, like a school child being examined by an instructor. “I only work for the boss.”

“Ah, as I should have surmised, since you are not wearing cuffs,” Heartman said, with a self-deprecating smile. “Pardon my incorrect assumption.”

Flaherty did not quite follow, but made an attempt at an apposite reply. “I don’t have cuffs of my own, sir. But I used the boss’s once, when he was sick. I saw your name on the list of UCA doctors. You’re one of the real, medicine kind.”

“Of sorts. My primary field is evolutionary biology, but since I have had medical training and physicians are in short supply these days, I diagnose and treat patients when I can.”

“Wow, that all sounds important. And complicated. You must be really busy.”

“Not nearly as much, now that things are settling down. Or they were, rather. We can’t exactly predict how the president will react to Sam’s request to dismantle the chiral network. Nor what the ramifications will be, should he agree to such a thing.”

“I don’t think Mr. Bridges means to make it a request. If he’s as stubborn as the boss says he is, it’ll be his way or the highway,” Flaherty said, then realized his mistake and flushed pink. “I mean—I didn’t mean any disrespect to Mr. Bridges. That’s just what the boss says.”

Heartman smiled affably. “I think your boss’s assessment is likely to be correct. From what I have seen of Sam, he is tenacious at the very least.”

“Tenacious,” Flaherty repeated thoughtfully, as if sounding the word for depth. “That’s a good word. Like, a nicer way to say stubborn, but still mean pretty much the same thing.”

“Touché,” Heartman laughed. “I shall have to take care to mind my tongue around you, Johnny. You are a sharp one.”

Flaherty looked at the floor, blushing even pinker under the casual praise. “I’m really not, sir. Everyone says I’m the dumbest son of a bitch they’ve ever met. I just like words, is all.”

“Interest in language is an indicator of intelligence. Perhaps you simply haven’t been given a chance to spread your wings.”

“I don’t have—oh. You meant metaphorical wings,” Flaherty said miserably. “See, I told you. I’m really stupid.”

“I very much doubt that,” Heartman replied, unperturbed. “If I had to venture a guess, I’d say you were not formally educated, but you’re a natural autodidact, and you’ve supplied the deficiency as best you can on your own.”

“Auto…what?”

“Autodidactic. Self-taught. Do you enjoy reading?”

“I love to read, sir,” Flaherty said, brightening up again. “I could read books all day. I want to read every single thing anyone ever wrote. Oh, but…I didn’t teach myself. The boss made me learn.”

“Higgs taught you to read?” Heartman asked, visibly surprised.

“Yes, sir.”

“I see. You must have been with him for a long time, then.”

“Yes, sir. He took me in when I was sixteen.”

“How very fascinating. I don’t mean to be obtuse, only it never occurred to me that he had a life outside his involvement with the EE. But of course he did. He’s a human being, just like the rest of us. That is, I believe he is…isn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir. He’s human and all that, but I’m not sure he’s like the rest of us. He says he—” Flaherty broke off and lowered his voice. “He says he’s the herald of death. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds crazy to me.”

“I would be rather inclined to agree with you, had I not heard what Lockne and Mama have to say about it. They are certain, and since I have yet to experience the other side for myself, I defer to their judgement.”

Flaherty frowned doubtfully. “Does Ms. Lockne’s sister really live in her body with her, like everyone says?”

“Well, the situation is not quite that simple. Why do you ask?”

“I just don’t like thinking she’s got an imaginary ghost she talks to. Grown-up people shouldn’t still believe in that stuff.”

“But you have seen BTs with your own eyes. You know they exist, and they are fairly analogous to what one would call ghosts.”

“But there’s a reason why there’s BTs. Stuff doesn’t happen without a scientific explanation. Things don’t work like that in the real world.”

“A phenomenon may exist, though the cause remain unknown. There are many things our science has yet to fully quantify.”

“I guess you know more about it than me. That still doesn’t—” Flaherty stopped short and lifted his head like a vigilant guard dog, watching as Sam and Higgs walked away down the hall together. “The boss doesn’t look happy. I hope everything’s ok.”

“Hey, Heartman, could you take Lou for a minute?” Lockne called, from the kitchen. “Fragile and I are trying to get dinner and place settings under control.”

“Ah, I—uh…” Heartman faltered.

“I’ll take her, ma’am,” Flaherty said, coming forward straightaway.

“Thanks, Johnny,” Lockne smiled, as she deposited the wiggling bundle in his arms. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Take your time, ma’am,” he replied stoutly. “I don’t mind. I have lots of experience with babies.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You do? Really?”

“Yes, ma’am. The family that took me in after my mom passed had a lot of them, one after another. There was always at least one baby, the whole time I was there.”

“I never would have guessed. You don’t look like the babysitting type.”

“Johnny is more than just a pretty face,” Fragile remarked archly, as she passed by with a stack of dishes, bound for the dining room. “He is full of surprises. Heartman, if you are afraid of the baby, you can come and help me set the table.”

“I know I don’t have a pretty face,” Flaherty said to Lou, once the others were out of earshot. “Ms. Fragile is just teasing me.”

“Uuuuu wabaaa,” Lou replied, in a conspiratorial tone.

“No, it’s ok. She’s my friend. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“Aweeeooooo,” Lou acquiesced.

“She’s a real nice lady. Your daddy and the boss are her best friends. I guess the boss is sort of your daddy too, now. That sure is something, isn’t it?”

“Bah bah.”

“Bah bah? Which one is bah bah?”

“Bah bah,” Lou reiterated, which clarified nothing.

“You sure are talkative for a baby so little,” Flaherty smiled, looking down into her alert, green eyes. “How’d you get so smart, Lou?”

“Aaaaaaahm,” Lou said wisely, and set about attempting to consume the sleeve of his sweater.

Untroubled by being thus gnawed upon, he carried her about the living area, showing her the different paintings and light fixtures, and whatever else happened to catch her attention. She seemed to like the holographic fireplace best, so he encamped before it and regaled her with tales of Huck Finn’s deeds, to which she listened with more or less of attentiveness, cooing and chirping and busily soaking his shoulder with drool.

At last, her eyes began to droop, and she laid her head down on his chest. He patted her back and rocked her gently, humming a snippet of a tune he couldn’t quite recall, but which always seemed to be in the back of his mind. When Sam and Higgs reemerged some ten minutes or so later, he was still standing before the fireplace, humming softly to the tiny infant, as she slept soundly in his arms.

“She just went down a minute or two ago,” he whispered to Higgs. “Should I take her to the nursery?”

“You want Johnny to take her up?” Higgs asked Sam.

Sam shook his head. “I’d rather have her out here, where we can keep an eye on her. I’ll grab the cradle pod from upstairs.”

“I’ll go,” Higgs said, staying him with a touch. “Don’t you two get rowdy and wake up that baby, though.”

Flaherty turned back to the fireplace and kept rocking Lou, as Higgs vanished up the stairs.

“Hey, sorry for being an asshole,” Sam said awkwardly. “None of that shit was your fault.”

“You don’t have to say that, Mr—uh…Sam,” Flaherty replied, just as clumsily. “I wasn’t upset or anything.”

“Yeah, well, I feel like a dick, so just accept the apology so we can be friends.”

“Apology accepted, then,” Flaherty grinned. “But it really was nothing. The boss says way worse stuff to me when he’s mad.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. He’s threatened to kill me about a million times. In lots of different ways, too. He gets more creative the madder he is.”

“That sounds like Higgs. He got pretty creative with his schemes to kill me. The funny part is, the one time he succeeded, he just shot me a lot of times. I don’t know why a gun didn’t occur to him earlier.”

“That…doesn’t sound very funny to me.”

“I guess you had to be there,” Sam shrugged. “How do you like staying with the Snakes? They’re a trip, right?”

“The snakes?”

“That’s what we call Lockne and Mama. The Twin Snakes. It’s an old, pre-stranding video game.”

“Oh. I’ve never played a video game.”

“Well, I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid. I played a ton of them to keep myself from going crazy. It sort of worked.”

“That’s…good,” Flaherty said, shifting uncomfortably. “Are they as fun as books?”

Sam blinked. “Are books fun?”

“I think so. They tell stories about all kinds of places I could never go to on my own, and whole other times, like way back in the old days. Reading is really exciting.”

“Video games can be pretty exciting, too. Some of them even have good stories.”

“They do?”

“Yeah. I could show you sometime, if you want.”

“Wow, really? I’d like that a lot, s—Sam,” Flaherty said eagerly, stumbling with his words as he narrowly avoided the proscribed ‘sir’.

“You know, you don’t have to be so jumpy around me,” Sam told him, intending to be reassuring and landing somewhere between gruff and paternal. “I’m not that scary.”

“You kind of are, though. You did knock me and all my buddies out and leave us tied up in our own camp. Also, you’re the boss’s boyfriend and I really want you to like me, so I’m super nervous.”

Sam found himself disarmed by the young man’s earnest, unaffected manner, and very nearly smiled. “I do like you. You’ve been loyal to Higgs all this time, and you were there for him when I fucked off for a month without saying when I’d be back. He told me how you took care of him when he got sick. He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

“That means a lot to me, Sam, thank you. But…doesn’t it bother you that I was a terrorist?”

“Higgs was the head terrorist and I sleep with him, so no. Not really.”

“Look who’s makin’ friends,” Higgs observed jauntily, as he returned bearing the cradle pod. “Before you know it, we’ll all be one big, happy family.”

“Pretty fucked up family,” Sam smirked. “But I guess it’s the one we’ve got.”

“I guess it is,” Higgs said, watching as Flaherty lowered Lou carefully into the snug receptacle, and Sam tucked her in. “Now, who’s ready for a good old fashioned family dinner and plotting to hold the UCA hostage until the president agrees to our demands?”

“Higgs, come on,” Sam admonished. “It’s not gonna be like that.”

“Won’t it? That’s disappointing. I was really lookin’ forward to seein’ that pompous jackass squirm.”

“No one’s making anyone squirm. We have a lot more of the power than he does, and he knows it. If we don’t use a light touch, it’ll look like we’re staging a coup.”

“What, no coup, either?” Higgs threw his hands up in theatrical resignation. “Well, I’m out. You didn’t tell me this wasn’t gonna be any fun at all.”

“Yes, I did. I said those exact words to you.”

“You know I’m only listening about half the time, Samuel. How am I supposed to remember every little thing you say?”

“I say like twenty words a day, Higgs.”

“And I remember a whole ten of ‘em. What do you want, I’m not a human tape-recorder.”

“What’s a tape-recorder?” Sam and Flaherty asked in unison, at which Higgs made a disgusted face.

“Maybe you two shouldn’t be friends, after all. I can already feel you mind-melding.”

“Are you boys ready?” Fragile called, popping her head around the corner. “Dinner is on the table.”

“What’d I tell you,” Higgs remarked to Sam, as the three headed for the dining room. “Big, happy family.”


End file.
